McDonald's sues top meat packers for allegedly colluding to inflate the price of beef

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 3:08 PM EDT, October 8, 2024


NEW YORK (AP) — McDonald’s has some beef with today’s largest meat packers. The fast food giant is suing the U.S. meat industry’s “Big Four” — Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef Packing Company — and their subsidiaries, alleging a price fixing scheme for beef specifically. In a federal complaint, filed Friday in New York, McDonald’s accused the companies of anticompetitive measures such as collectively limiting supply to boost prices and charge “illegally inflated” amounts.

This collusion caused the beef market to become “a monopoly in which direct purchasers were forced to buy at prices dictated by (the meat packers),” McDonald’s suit reads — later noting that the injury it has sustained as one of those buyers is what “antitrust laws were designed to prevent.”

McDonald’s alleges that the meat packers’ conspiracy dates back nearly a decade, at least as early as January 2015, and continues today. Its suit argues these companies’ actions violate the Sherman Act, a federal antitrust law.

Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. But these companies have faced federal probes and allegations of price fixing before. Lawsuits filed by grocery stores, ranchers, restaurants and wholesalers have piled up over the years. Some litigation is still pending, although meat packers and processers have opened their wallets in the past.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/mcdonalds-sues-meat-packers-beef-price-fixing-6ea9d046eb711fd2a93d03305fa07882

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[flying_wahini]

1. Let them squeal. MickyD's has plenty of cash and can afford to pay. Just complaining cuz it's cutting into

The CEO’s Xmas bonus?

[sarisataka]

3. Guess whose pocket MickyD will reach into to pay that price?

Hint- the CEO isn't going to get a smaller Xmas bonus

[Prairie Gates]

9. You do understand that McDonald's is validating Harris' main argument about inflation, right?

[LisaM]

12. A lot of McDonald's stores are franchisees.

They aren't all corporate stores.

[Collimator]

2. Because it is McDonald's. . .

. . . and not some ordinary citizen or even a smaller business, they might actually get some justice.

[Marthe48]

5. rooting for McD's

Maybe a lawsuit by them will get the price of meat down. I don't want to be a vegetarian, but I buy less and less animal based protein. I remember when ground beef was .79/lb. Sure don't want to pay $4/lb for the same thing.

It's a damnned shame that food and housing has been added into the bottom line and fatcats profit when people go homeless and hungry.

[UpInArms]

6. I remember

Last edited Tue Oct 8, 2024, 10:07 PM - Edit history (1)

when I was a little girl, there was a stray kitty outside the grocery … I had my nickel allowance and went to the butcher and he gave me what seemed like a lot of meat … I went through the checkout and got back 3 pennies and went out and fed the kitty ….

I think the price of a pound was less than 20 cents (my god, I am old )

[Marthe48]

11. I think it was a little cheaper when I was young

My parents had a grocery store. My Dad got a big kick out of neighbor dogs that came to the delivery door of the meat dept. He'd give 2 of them bones they'd carry home. He had one customer who brought his dog, and Dad would have a little package of meat wrapped for her to carry home.

I remember ground beef raised to .79/lb. right after the oil crisis in the 1970s. The government okayed a meat/soy blend that was good and affordable. When inflation stopped climbing the store stopped selling the blend. I wish they'd bring it back.

[Prairie Gates]

7. I thought only "crazy Democrats" thought high prices were caused by corporate collusion

Are the top execs and general counsel at...checks notes...McDonald's Corporation...crazy Democrats?

[JoseBalow]

8. I'm surprised McDonald's doesn't raise it's own beef

[cstanleytech]

10. Ya they use they use their own ketchup which IMO tastes like shit.

[Maine-i-ac]

13. Meat price collusion puts the squeeze on US family budget: (yawn). Let McD's get hurt and the sparks fly.

God forbid anyone stepped in for US consumers before Grimace came in swinging.

[SmittyWerben]

14. This has been a long time coming

Meat producers have been complaining about this 4 company monopoly for some time now. I have watched vlogs by ranchers who discuss how these companies are colluding to control not only the price of beef in the stores, but also the price paid for cattle to the producers. They have used threats of cutting off supply to grocery stores that try to use small local packing companies in order to put those small companies out of business. There does not appear to be any oversight of this industry, or oversight of any price gouging industries (Oil) any more. So much excessive profit taking under the giuse of "extreme market forces."

[Kali]

15. yep

[intelpug]

16. McDonald's

This is possibly not exactly what it seems,, Quite a while ago like about 25 years or so the then CEO of McDonald's was going to lead the crusade against hot branding of beef cattle in the U S . "We are one of the largest buyers of beef in the country' you bet we have some influence in the matter'' I cannot quote him word for word now but that was what he inferred at the time. It turned out however that Mickey Ds had to pull their horns in and back off since at that time it turned out that while they may have been one of the largest buyers around it was almost all played out DAIRY COW meat that they used, not beef cow meat, Two entirely separate, and for the most part unconnected industries. Dairy cattle are not branded like beef cattle are and they bought almost no actual beef cattle then so their influence in this issue was almost totally nonexistent. Packers handle both types of cattle and maybe they could get some positive outcome for consumers on both ends, however being creatures of the corporate world I would not be surprised in the end if they don't just try to get a sweet deal for themselves by being a money backed squeaky wheel and to hell with the rest of the world

[C0RI0LANUS]

17. Official White House comments about meat-processors during the COVID pandemic (Sep 2021)

Full transcript in link at bottom. Excerpt follows:

"The meat-processors are generating record profits during the pandemic, at the expense of consumers, farmers, and ranchers. The dynamic of a hyper-consolidated pinch point in the supply chain raises real questions about pandemic profiteering. During the pandemic, wholesale prices for beef rose much faster than input prices for cattle. That means that the prices the processors pay to ranchers aren’t increasing, but the prices collected by processors from retailers are going up."

"These record profits, income, and margins underscore the role that meat-processors’ dominant market position and power play in increasing meat prices."


Source:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/blog/2021/09/08/addressing-concentration-in-the-meat-processing-industry-to-lower-food-prices-for-american-families/

[hunter]

18. I look forward to the day when most popular fast food hamburgers are not made of meat...

... and those that are come from farms and ranches where the animals are treated well and the land is sustainably managed to minimize environmental impacts.

The Impossible Whopper at Burger King is pretty good.

Factory farm meat and dairy products are wretched in every way -- bad for the workers, bad for the environment, and worst of all for the animals.

I'm not a vegetarian like my wife but I do pay attention to where any meat I buy comes from. I can't recall the last time I bought hamburger in the supermarket or how much it cost, it was probably for a family get together. I don't expect everyone to be vegetarians.

[Vinca]

19. I like the taste of Impossible burgers over regular burgers. I never make burgers of beef anymore.

[oasis]

20. Giant corporations steal like hell, yet seek tax

breaks from U.S. government. Let’s see congressional hearings about that.