大会講演
Price Fixing by Dominant Meat Processors and the Global Concentration of Agrifood Power
2026 年 62 巻 1 号 p. 37-43
詳細
2026 年 62 巻 1 号 p. 37-43
In recent years, prices of meat have increased rapidly in some regions, even as the prices paid to livestock producers have decreased. This has led to record profits for many of the world’s largest meat processors, due to their strategic position between more diffuse producers and consumers. If price fixing is technically illegal, how have firms been able to coordinate their actions effectively? One way to put industry interests ahead of individual firm interests is to structure better conditions for higher prices. This may include, (1) the use of data sharing firms to exchange what is typically confidential business information, (2) increasing common ownership by asset management firms, and (3) “gin rummy” deals—swapping divisions among the largest firms. Directions of movement that would better protect consumers, producers and workers face significant obstacles in the near term but are more likely to be achieved in the long term.
In recent years food prices have increased rapidly in many parts of the world. In the United States, average grocery prices were 29% higher in 2025 compared to 2021 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Meat prices in the US rose even more significantly and in late 2025 were at all-time highs. The price of beef, for example, increased 14% from January to August 2025 (Schweizer, 2025).
In addition to rising prices for consumers, payments to farmers and ranchers have declined in many sectors. A US cattle producer association, R-CALF (2021), has noted that the average steer price dropped from $170 in 2014 to $96 in 2020. These trends have resulted in a growing price spread, which has benefitted meat processors in the middle. Such substantial pricing power has led to record processing firm profits, and in September and December 2021, when Joseph Biden was president of the US, he drew attention to these trends. In White House Blog posts, the administration noted that, for the four largest meat processors, “gross profits have increased by more than 120%” and “net income has surged by 500%” from 2019 to 2021 (Deese et al., 2021a, 2021b).
A key contributor to these outcomes is that meat processing in the US has become highly concentrated, with the top four firms combining to control more than half of chicken sales and more than two-thirds of pork and beef sales (Hendrickson et al., 2020). In addition, some firms are dominant in multiple sectors, such as JBS and Tyson in beef, pork and chicken, and Cargill in soybean processing (i.e., livestock feed) and beef. Interestingly, although on the one hand the Biden administration was calling out increasing prices in meat processing industries, on the other hand, it allowed Cargill, the third largest firm in soybean and beef processing, to acquire the third-ranked chicken processor Sanderson, further consolidating the industry.
In addition to consumer prices going up and producer prices going down, production levels in concentrated industries are likely to decline—restricting output is a very effective way to maintain high prices. While dominant meat processors frequently employ the rhetoric that they are “feeding America” or “feeding the world” they have worked to keep production levels low, which has led to shortages and empty supermarket shelves in some cases.
This of course is not new—Adam Smith was a pioneer of political economy, and readers may be familiar with his quote from The Wealth of Nations in 1776 (Smith, 1776), “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices….” Smith wouldn’t find the trends described above surprising, but they also raise a question: how are firms able to achieve these outcomes without engaging in the illegal practice of meeting in one room to fix prices? In other words, how can they act collectively in the industry’s interest rather than competing as individual firms to lower prices?
One answer is to structure better conditions for price increases. Baran and Sweezy (1966) discussed how oligopolies—markets dominated by a few large sellers—have an advantage for price signaling. Executives who put the interests of the industry first will raise prices, and other firms will signal agreement by matching these increases. Baran and Sweezy also emphasized that, in concentrated markets, prices are “sticky”—they tend to be quick to rise but much slower to fall.
In this article I illuminate three additional approaches often used to structure conditions favorable to prices increases: data sharing, common ownership, and “gin rummy” deals. Besides these, there are other possible approaches as well. Although I focus on meat processing, numerous agrifood industries are experiencing similar trends and impacts globally.
Data sharing refers to the exchange of sensitive information between firms in the same industry. An example is Agri Stats, Inc., founded by a livestock feed dealer in the US in 1985. Its customers/subscribers include nearly all the leading national meat processors, accounting for over 90% of the US markets for chicken, turkey, pork, and beef. Participating firms give Agri Stats their cost, output, and price data, which is then redistributed to all the other subscribers in the industry. Technically it is supposed to be anonymous, but in practice it is quite easy to decode not only firms, but specific processing plants.
On September 28, 2023, the US Department of Justice (USDOJ) filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Agri Stats Inc. and, by 2025, six state attorneys general had joined this action. The agency stated that data sharing “…enables and encourages processors to increase prices and restrict output to boost profits industry-wide” (USDOJ, 2025: p. 2). The complaint reproduces a slide from an Agri Stats presentation to Cargill, promoting their service of “strategic pricing.” The slide depicts stick figures pulling a line representing prices to move it in an even more upward direction and includes the bullet point “goal: forward motion” (USDOJ, 2025: p. 28). The complaint also quoted an executive at Smithfield/WH Group, who summarized Agri Stats’ strategic pricing advice with four words, “Just raise your price” (USDOJ, 2025: p. 2).
The connections enabled by Agri Stats result in a vast web, with every turkey processor connected to every other turkey processor, every pork processor connected to all other pork processors, etc. Notably, Tyson is the only firm participating in all four of the largest meat processing sectors, therefore it is connected to every firm that subscribes to Agri Stats. This position makes Tyson well positioned for price leadership or price signaling, as well as coordination of production levels. Two agricultural economists analyzed an extensive set of quarterly earnings calls and concluded that Tyson used these communications “to signal their production intentions to the rest of the industry, and then the smaller players adjusted their production accordingly” (Sheng and Vukina, 2024: p. 59). Some keywords that were used repeatedly to reinforce the strategy of keeping output low included “cut, balance, constrain, discipline, reduction and adjustment.” In the case of chicken processors Sanderson and Pilgrim’s, executives explicitly discussed making chicken supply decisions based on Agri Stats data on earnings calls (USDOJ, 2025).
Agri Stats and its subscribers have faced more than 100 antitrust lawsuits since 2016, including from giants like McDonald’s, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, Sysco, and US Foods. This has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and settlements—Tyson, for instance, paid out $221.5 million for chicken and $85 million for pork. In addition, Agri Stats stopped reporting pork and turkey industry data in 2019 because of these lawsuits.
There are other data sharing firms in agrifood industries in the US, and some of these are listed in Table 1. The table also details the potential impacts, such as driving down meat processing worker wages, increasing the price of frozen potatoes approximately 50% in just two years, and skyrocketing egg prices and egg shortages. Indeed, in early 2025, every grocery retailer I visited had empty shelves and limits on how many eggs could be purchased.
Food and agricultural data sharing firms in the United States and impacts potentially influenced by coordination.
| Firm | Sector | Impacts potentially influenced by coordination |
|---|---|---|
| Agri Stats, Inc. | meat | Higher prices and lower production levels for chicken, pork, beef and turkey for several decades; suppression of chicken plant worker wages and benefits from 2000 to 2021—just one Agri Stats subscriber, Tyson Foods, paid $221.5 million for chicken in 2021, and $85 million for pork in 2025, to settle lawsuits from restaurants and grocers; a $398 million settlement for workers was awarded in 2025 |
| Webber, Meng, Sahl and Company, Inc. | meat | Suppression of chicken plant worker wages and benefits for at least 20 years—$84.8 million in restitution was awarded in 2022 |
| PotatoTrac | potatoes | 47% increase in price of frozen potatoes from July 2022 to July 2024 |
| Umer Barry | eggs | 223% increase in price of a dozen eggs from January 2022 to March 2025 |
Source: Author’s compilation of business press coverage.
Another change that is structuring better conditions for price increases is the rise of common ownership by asset management firms over the last 25 years. Fig. 1 shows the top ten publicly traded global meat processors and the percentage of shares held by Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Fidelity, and Rowe Price in March 2025. These investors have high ownership stakes across the most dominant industry firms, not only in meat processing, but in numerous concentrated economic sectors, such as transportation, banking, and energy. For meat processing, 15 to 29.7 percent of shares in the three largest US firms are held by just five asset managers, which also control shares in firms headquartered in other nations. More broadly, Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street have become the largest shareholders in nearly 40% of all publicly traded companies (Antón et al., 2025).
Top ten publicly trade global meat processors: percentage of shares held by five asset management firms
Source: LSEG Workspace (LSEG 2025)
Common ownership of multiple firms in the same industry has the potential to reduce incentives to compete and to increase incentives for further industry consolidation, such as through controlling voting rights (Clapp, 2019). Torshizi and Clapp (2021), for example, analyzed the impacts of increasingly large stakes in the top five global seed firms held by five asset management firms. Their model suggests approximately 6.2 to 14.6% of maize, soybean, and cotton seed price increases from 1997 to 2017 may be attributable to common ownership, even after controlling for other important supply and demand side factors such as market concentration, intellectual property rights protection against farm-saved seed, innovation, and path dependency.
Common ownership is also increasing through investments by national governments. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, for instance, acquired 33.83% of the shares of Minerva, as well as 10.7% of the shares of BRF. Both meat processing firms are headquartered in Brazil. In 2025, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund increased its stake in a joint venture with BRF shortly after it merged with another Brazilian meat processor, Marfrig, to form “MBRF” (Mano and Teles, 2025).
Relatedly, creditors may have an interest in ensuring that multiple firms in the same industry engage in less competition. Barclays and Morgan Stanley have provided credit to several of the top global meat processors from 2015 to 2022, but Bank of America has connections to all four of the largest during this period: JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and WH Group (LSEG, 2025).
The term “gin rummy” with respect acquisitions was popularized by Warren Buffett—he was referring to the card game where players pick up others’ discards, and comparing it to the practice of dominant firms acquiring divisions from each other (Deakin et al., 2026). When executives of an acquired division move to a new parent firm, it increases the likelihood of a shared industry-wide perspective, and less emphasis on the performance of an individual firm. Fig. 2 shows gin rummy deals that have occurred in the meat processing industry between 2000 and 2023. Dark gray circles represent the top 25 global meat processors that have made one or more such deals, sized proportional to 2023 annual sales of the parent firm. The smaller black circles indicate subsidiaries that have been acquired from other top 25 global meat processors.
Global meat processing industry: “gin rummy” deals from 2000 to 2023
Source: Adapted from Deakin et al. (2026)
The strategies that motivate gin rummy deals are well illustrated by Tyson and their internal company motto, “segment, concentrate, dominate.” The firm filed a trademark on this phrase in 1998 but cancelled it a decade later. This motto describes how executives will narrowly define a target market, then concentrate firm resources with a goal of becoming the largest (or possibly second largest) firm in that segment, and then exploiting this power when the goal is achieved. Conversely, if the firm is unable to achieve the first or second sales position in a market, they may choose to exit that segment.
Tyson has obtained the resources to bolt on substantial growth through gin rummy deals, such as acquiring Hillshire Brands from Sara Lee. Sara Lee’s executives accepted a $7.8 billion offer from Tyson for their meat division in 2014, while forming a separate unit for their bakery and beverage divisions. In addition, Tyson acquired Keystone Foods from Marfrig, and operations in Thailand and EU from BRF.
Tyson has also sold divisions to other top 25 global meat processors, notably their poultry units in Brazil to JBS, and their poultry units in Mexico to a JBS subsidiary, Pilgrim’s Pride. Tyson executives likely did not see a path to first or second place in these markets, but instead of selling these divisions to a smaller competitor, sold them to the firm that was most dominant in these markets. This was not the most competitive move that Tyson could take from a firm perspective, but from an industry perspective, it resulted in further market concentration and increased the collective power of global meat processors.
JBS, headquartered in Brazil, has made the largest number of gin rummy acquisitions (12), including from Marfrig, BRF, Cargill and Danish Crown. One interesting gin rummy deal involved JBS selling its Moy Park division to Pilgrim’s Pride, which itself was 80% owned by JBS. The sale garnered funds to pay for fines assessed by Brazil for a bribery scandal—JBS had significant government support for financing acquisitions, but bribes to more than 1,800 politicians helped to give them even more favorable terms in comparison to other Brazilian meat processors (Freitas et al., 2017). Three of these firms, Minerva, Marfrig and BRF, also made gin rummy deals with support from Brazil’s government between 2000 and 2023, but far fewer than JBS.
In Asia, WH Group acquired the much larger US firm Smithfield in 2013. The $7.1 billion sale price was paid with support from the government of China, where WH Group is headquartered (Howard, 2021). Smithfield had previously made three gin rummy acquisitions in the US, while also making gin rummy sales of a beef processing division to JBS and a pork production division to Cargill. WH Group has since made a gin rummy acquisition of Clougherty Packing from Hormel. Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group is headquartered in Thailand, and has made two gin rummy deals, including acquiring a division of a German firm, Tönnies. NH Foods of Japan is a top 25 global meat processor, but has made just two acquisitions in recent decades, and neither were gin rummy deals, therefore it is not shown in Fig. 2.
In highly concentrated industries, such as meat processing, it is more likely that prices will go up, and less likely that they will go down. Some approaches to further structure better conditions for higher prices have included the use of data sharing firms, common ownership by asset management firms, and gin rummy deals. Although this article focused on meat processing, other agrifood industries, such as seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, grain trading, dairy processing, and beer brewing, have become much more concentrated globally in recent decades, and therefore more susceptible to these strategies. Competition laws at national levels have largely failed to halt these trends and their negative impacts.
Although there no easy solutions, some directions of movement that would better protect consumers, producers, and workers in meat processing, as well as other industries, will likely include revitalizing national antitrust enforcement. Encouragingly, the USDOJ and the Federal Trade Commission jointly released new merger guidelines in late 2023 (USDOJ and FTC, 2023), which were more stringent than previous guidelines. Regulators subsequently took actions following these guidelines that were likely to slow trends of consolidation, but a new administration in 2025 failed to maintain most of these efforts.
Another positive direction would be toward developing global competition treaties that better address the supra-national scope and jurisdiction of these firms. Specifically, this would include better oversight of data sharing, common ownership, and gin rummy acquisitions.
These steps face significant obstacles, however, due to the increasing political power of dominant food and agriculture firms. Therefore, another needed change will be to increase public awareness of these trends and impacts. Many governments are unlikely to implement policies disadvantageous to elite firms unless there is massive public pressure. Because the poorest members of society are harmed more by price increases for food in comparison to most other economic sectors, greater visibility of food price fixing may undermine support for governments and lead to more protests (Bellemare, 2015). In the long term I am more hopeful that these trends will be slowed or even reversed, and that there will be movement toward more price competition in food sectors globally.
