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Karina Jones is a real-life ranch wife in the Nebraska Sandhills, Field Director for R-CalfUSA and one of the most highly sought-after speakers in the cattle industry nationwide!
Hello everyone in farm and ranch country. While fall harvest is heating up around the country, it appears that a probe into finding out why consumers are paying so much at the grocery store is also a hot topic!
According to Reuters, “The U.S. Department of Justice recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against data company Agri Stats, alleging that its weekly reports on meat pricing and sales have enabled anticompetitive practices in the chicken, pork, and turkey industries.
Meat companies including Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods (TSN.N) have previously faced lawsuits from restaurants and other food buyers alleging they use reports from Agri Stats to conspire to drive up meat prices.”
“Agri Stats operates its information exchanges to promote total industry profits at the expense of competition,” said the DOJ’s complaint.
Meat processors pay millions of dollars for Agri Stats reports that include “loosely anonymized” cost, output, and price information, which the companies then use to align their prices with competitors, the DOJ complaint said.”
But Agri-Stats has now placed the Department of Justice on the defense in this case.
“The U.S. Justice Department has denied revealing competitively sensitive information in its ongoing antitrust lawsuit against meat industry data provider Agri Stats. Agri Stats had asked a judge to place the lawsuit under seal and to order the government to refile its case without disclosing allegedly confidential details about its business.”
Reuters also reported that, “Agri Stats has been named a defendant in a number of private antitrust lawsuits in U.S. federal courts. The company in 2019 paused turkey and pork industry reports in response to those cases, according to the Justice Department’s lawsuit.
Attorneys for Agri Stats took issue with a number of parts of the government’s 68-page complaint.
The company wants to seal information including excerpts from its industry reports, certain details from pending litigation and discussion of Agri Stats’ ownership structure.”
One thing is for sure, the American consumers are being forced to pay more to put a meal on the table for their family than ever before. I fear that what this price-flation has caused in the long term is a new normal in retail food prices as mega food corporations have now grown aware of what consumers are willing to pay for food, I doubt they soften their prices for the sake of righteousness.
Join me right back here next week as I bring you more ag news from our nation’s capital.
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Karina ranches with her husband, Marty, and 4 children near Broken Bow, NE. She grew up in western NE, with roots also in southwest SD. The cattle industry and raising kids is her passion.
Tune in Fridays on The Hot Barn Report, where she deep dives into cattle industry issues and highlights industry reforms or listen to Ranch Raised with Karina Jones a slice of daily life on the Jones Ranch.
