gouging is an incredibly unhelpful context in a macroeconomic sense. In cases of shorter term scarcity (e.g. toilet paper during early covid), you can have instances of gouging. But over a longer-term period where prices are calibrating to demand/supply dynamics, price increases simply reflect the shifting balance between supply and demand.

Should we be concerned about why there are shifts in demand/supply? Sure.(In the case of food, part of this is driven by the UA war and likely other trends in food productive)?

But it is eminently unhelpful to simply attribute increases to 'gouging' and expect that to be the final say.