The Justice Department also announced it was looking into antitrust allegations against the nation’s four largest meatpacking companies.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said on May 4 that it would soon unveil a “historic settlement that will directly affect the prices of proteins like chicken, pork, and turkey.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the settlement was coming as part of a broader plan by the Trump administration to halt anticompetitive behavior in food pricing.
Last November, President Donald Trump announced he was directing the DOJ to look into meatpacking companies allegedly “driving up the price of beef through illicit collusion, price fixing, and manipulation.”
He followed up with an executive order creating Food Supply Chain Security Task Forces for the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission in December.
“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,” Blanche said during a May 4 press conference.
That investigation is directed toward the four largest meatpacking corporations in the United States: Cargill, Tyson Foods, Brazilian-controlled JBS, and National Beef, which currently control around 85 percent of meat processing, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.
“The rate of this four-firm control has accelerated since the 1970s according to USDA data,” she added, noting that their grip on the cattle processing market has skyrocketed since 1977, when those four companies controlled only 25 percent.
The Epoch Times reached out to the companies for comment.
Apart from eliminating anticompetitive marker practices, Rollins said the Agriculture Department is focusing on lowering meat prices by boosting the U.S. cattle population, which she said is at its lowest point since the 1950s.
She attributed the drop in cattle to “climate alarmism,” along with droughts, wildfires, volatile markets, and “over-regulation from previous administrations.”
Her department will combat the shortage by cutting back regulations and inspection fees, as well as opening up millions of acres for grazing.
