Justice Department Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Agri Stats Inc for Helping Turkey, Chicken, Pork Producers Fix Prices

It’s a good thing we kept the federal government going this weekend: we need to pay those nice people at the Department of Justice so they can prosecute their big new antitrust case against Agri Stats Inc., an Indiana company that helps the meat oligopoly collude to keep prices high and competition low:

The Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Agri Stats Inc. today for organizing and managing anticompetitive information exchanges among broiler chicken, pork and turkey processors. The complaint alleges that Agri Stats violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by collecting, integrating and distributing competitively sensitive information related to price, cost and output among competing meat processors. This conduct harms customers, including grocery stores and American families.

The complaint, filed in the District of Minnesota, alleges that Agri Stats has for years produced comprehensive weekly and monthly reports for participating meat processors, which use the data to set prices and output levels. Spanning hundreds of pages, the reports contain recent data relating to sales prices, costs such as worker and farmer compensation and output that are often detailed by facility or company. Participating processors accounted for more than 90% of broiler chicken sales, 80% of pork sales and 90% of turkey sales in the United States. The complaint further alleges that Agri Stats understood that meat processors have used these reports for anticompetitive purposes and, in some instances, even encouraged meat processors to raise prices and reduce supply. While distributing troves of competitively sensitive information among participating processors, Agri Stats withholds its reports from meat purchasers, workers and American consumers, resulting in an information asymmetry that further exacerbates the competitive harm of Agri Stats’ information exchanges.

“The Justice Department is committed to addressing anticompetitive information exchanges that result in consumers paying more for chicken, pork and turkey,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “This case is the latest effort by the Justice Department to protect American consumers, farmers and workers from anticompetitive practices in the agriculture industry.”

The complaint alleges that Agri Stats’ scheme continues to this day in the chicken processing industry, among others. While Agri Stats paused its turkey and pork reporting after facing several private antitrust lawsuits, Agri Stats has expressed an intent to resume such reporting after these lawsuits’ resolution [U.S. Department of Justice, press release, 2023.09.28].

In its complaint, the DOJ names dozens of co-conspirators, including Huron turkey producer Dakota Provisions:

Broiler Chicken: Allen Harim Foods, LLC, Amick Farms, LLC (“Amick Farms”), Case Farms, Norman W. Fries, Inc. (d/b/a Claxton Poultry Farms), Fieldale Farms Corp., Foster Poultry Farms (“Foster Farms”), George’s, Harrison Poultry, Inc., Holmes Foods, Inc., House of Raeford Farms, Inc. (“House of Raeford”), Koch Foods, Inc. (“Koch Foods”), Mar-Jac Poultry, Mountaire, O.K. Foods, Inc., Peco Foods, Inc., Perdue, Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (“Pilgrim’s”), Sanderson Farms, LLC (“Sanderson Farms”), Simmons Foods, Inc., Tyson, and Wayne Farms, LLC (“Wayne Farms”);

Pork: Clemens Food Group, LLC (“Clemens”), Hormel Foods Corporation (“Hormel”), Indiana Packers Corporation, JBS USA Food Company, LLC (“JBS”), Seaboard Foods, LLC (“Seaboard”), Smithfield Foods, Inc. (“Smithfield”), Triumph Foods, LLC (“Triumph”), and Tyson;

Turkey: Butterball, LLC (“Butterball”), Cargill, Cooper Farms, Inc. (“Cooper Farms”), Dakota Provisions, LLC, Farbest Foods, Inc. (“Farbest”), Foster Farms, House of Raeford, Hormel, Jennie-O Turkey Store, Inc. (“Jennie-O”), Kraft Heinz Foods, Michigan Turkey Producers, LLC, Perdue, Prestage, Tyson, and West Liberty Foods, LLC [USDOJ, complaint, U.S.A. v. Agri Stats Inc., Case #0:23-cv-03009, U.S. District Court of Minnesota, 2023.09.28, pp. 10–11].

Dakota Provisions and Agri Stats are implicated as co-conspirators in a separate class-action lawsuit in Illinois federal court accusing turkey producers of fixing prices. Agri Stats has been the target of dozens of anti-trust lawsuits, but Thursday’s complaint in Minnesota federal court appears to be the first time the USDOJ has tackled the data-sharing firm.