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In good news for American families, the U.S. Labor Department’s latest Consumer Price Index shows overall inflation fell to a three year low in September after the agency reported over a quarter million new jobs created in the same period. Even greater inflationary progress was hampered by higher food prices as the big food industry continues to face a myriad of accusations of price-fixing, price-gouging, and market consolidation in pursuit of record profits.

Accusations that include an ongoing U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) antitrust lawsuit against meat industry data firm Agri Stats Inc. for “organizing and managing anticompetitive information exchanges” among dominant poultry and pork producers who account for 80-90% of U.S. sales in their respective markets. The DOJ alleged Agri Stats “encouraged” industry to keep prices “artificially high.” Today, Accountable.US released a new analysis showing that the top three chicken industry “co-conspirators” named in the Justice Dept.’s Agri Stats lawsuit — Tyson, Pilgrim’s Pride, and the recently-merged Sanderson-Wayne Farms — have already been subject to at least $698 million in settlements for price- and wage-fixing lawsuits, many of which were also based on charges of anticompetitive information sharing.

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There’s a clear pattern of collusion, price, and wage-fixing across among big poultry producers, and American families are the ones paying the price at both work and at the grocery store. It’s also clear the Biden-Harris administration is on the hunt for bad industry actors that are running afoul of the law to artificially inflate prices and maximize profits.”

Accountable.US’ Liz Zelnick

Due to Agri Stats’ rash of antitrust lawsuits, it stopped reporting data for the pork and turkey industries in 2019. But the firm has continued working for major processors of chicken, which is now “the most popular meat in the world” and saw U.S. per capita consumption explode by 160% from 1970 to 2018.

Additionally, in July 2024, Pilgrim’s Pride, one of the alleged co-conspirators in the AgriStats lawsuit, reported $326.5 million in Q2 net profits, up from $61 million in 2023 amid consumer price hikes. Pilgrim’s Pride is also a subsidiary of JBS Food Group, which was named in a major lawsuit filed last week by McDonald’s accusing the “Big Four” U.S. meatpackers of a price fixing scheme related to beef, including “collectively limiting supply to boost prices and charge ‘illegally inflated’ amounts.”

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