Four companies own 85% of US beef production. Independent ranchers say consolidation has narrowed their market options, and past federal antitrust cases have largely ended in fines rather than meaningful changes.
Key trade agreements, the legality of the global trade war, Agri Stats’ antitrust case, more USDA moves, and rulings on dicamba and glyphosate predicted to grab industry headlines.
The reports Agri Stats produces and shares with meat processing companies are so detailed they can be used to fix prices, according to numerous lawsuits.
Big Meat's secret weapon is a company called Agri Stats. Every week a bunch of Big Meat companies send Agri Stats a raft load of internal sales documents which Agri Stats merges into a industry wide sales report and sends back to subscribers. Agri Stats and those reports are at the heart of numerous
JBS SA owned Pilgrim's Pride is the second-largest chicken processor in the United States. But now as it turns out Pilgrims Pride is also more crooked than Lombard Street.
If that’s not enough the Department of Justice has subpoenaed Big-Meats “big four” – Tyson Foods, JBS SA, Cargill, and National Beef/Marfrig – in an attempt to learn if there’s been price fixing hanky-panky during the COVID-19 crisis. The subpoenas come at the request of Attorneys general from North
Four restaurant chains have sued the country’s biggest poultry companies, including Tyson Foods and Pilgrim’s Pride, saying they conspired to inflate prices, manipulated price indices and restrained production.
