DOJ Investigating Alleged Antitrust Violations by Major Meatpackers

DOJ Investigating Alleged Antitrust Violations by Major Meatpackers

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the DOJ antitrust division has been investigating possible violations by the meatpacking industry.

Blanche spoke at a press conference:

As you all know, last November, the president tasked the department to investigate the costs and prices of beef. As a result, we prioritized investigating potential antitrust violations in US cattle and beef markets.

In the beef industry, the big four processors control over 85% of the beef processing market. Two of the big four are primarily foreign owned. Multiple plant closures across the country. The current market structure and high concentration in the industry indicate anti-competitive activity. Since the President’s executive order, the department has been actively investigating with a review of over 3 million documents. Hundreds of industry participants, including ranchers, cattlemen, producers, and processors have been contacted and many interviewed as part of this ongoing investigation.

More broadly, the department has also executed on the President’s executive order to stop anti-competitive behavior in the broader food supply market.

Later this week, we will be announcing an historic settlement that will directly affect the prices of proteins like chicken, pork, and turkey. This business model allows competitors to exchange competitively sensitive information on every aspect of the protein industry, and has raised the prices on chicken, raised the prices on pork, and raised the prices on turkey.

.@DAGToddBlanche: The Department has executed on @POTUS' Executive Order to stop anti-competitive behavior in the broader food supply market. Later this week, we'll be announcing a historic settlement that will directly affect the prices of proteins like chicken, pork and turkey. pic.twitter.com/PbxzG4OsZc

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 4, 2026

The four firms are Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBSm and National Beef.

JBS has its headquarters in Brazil. Brazil-based MBRF Global Foods owns National Beef.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins broke it down even more:

Today, they don’t own them together, but in in total, there are 70 subsidiary companies that are owned by these four. This has led to a frightening landscape for cattle ranchers.

Industry consolidation reduces options for our ranchers looking to sell their cattle. It weakens their negotiating power, and it risks reliance upon a single buyer.

Today, the concentration of larger plants opens the door to tighter coordination by the Big Four with producers and perhaps the exertion, perhaps the exertion of control over them as well, given they have limited options to sell their cattle. As ranchers face fewer options for selling their animals, the Big Four grow stronger and stronger.

These companies now have an unprecedented ability to wield market power and influences, price influence, prices paid for cattle definitely more so than if we had greater competition. On top of that, half of these meat packing giants, including the largest meat packer in the world, are either foreign owned or have significant foreign ownership and control, making them a threat, not just to our cattle producers, but a threat to America itself.

And as time has gone on, it becomes more and more clear that food security is truly national security. One Brazilian owned company holds roughly a quarter of the market and has a documented history of international corruption and illicit activity. The brutal reality is that such foreign ownership of meat packers has been affiliated not just with corruption, but also cartels, and as recent as last week, slave labor, which is bad enough on its own, but it’s also to the detriment of America’s great, independent ranchers and consumers further when just four firms control a market.

Suppliers and food prices are rocked heavily when disruptions occur. The last few years have proven that the protein sector especially, and therefore our food security is especially at risk when global pandemics, animal disease outbreaks and facility issues like fires, labor disputes, food borne illnesses, and cyber security attacks occur.

As an example, in 2019 a fire at a Tyson slaughter plant in Kansas resulted in a 27% drop in cattle traded on the market just that following week, and in 2021 a cyber attack on JBS plants in the US caused ripple effects and delayed production.

The Wall Street Journal noted that a nationwide cattle shortage has caused problems, causing a spike in prices due to demand.

The U.S. cattle supply sits “at its lowest level since 1951.”

[Featured image via YouTube]

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.