The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday confirmed an active antitrust investigation into the country’s largest beef processors, with prosecutors having reviewed more than three million documents as they examine whether concentration in U.S. cattle and beef markets has helped drive up grocery prices.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, speaking at a White House news conference, said multiple plant closures, the current market structure, and high concentration in the industry all point to potentially anti-competitive activity, though he declined to name specific companies. Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS USA, and National Beef Packing Company together slaughter roughly 85% of U.S. grain-fattened cattle.
Blanche urged ranchers, purchasers, processors, and other industry insiders to report price-fixing, bid-rigging, market allocation, and procurement fraud through the DOJ’s whistleblower program, which can pay informants 15% to 30% of any criminal recovery exceeding $1 million.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins tied the probe to a broader food-security concern, noting that the U.S. cattle herd stood at 86.2 million head as of January 1 — “the lowest since the 1950s.” Rollins said the country has lost more than 17% of its cattle ranchers over the past decade, including more than 100,000 ranches in total. “Growing the herd size is an immediate problem in need of solutions, and we’ve already begun implementing across the government and into the states how we’re going to solve for that,” Rollins said.
Secretary Rollins also singled out the foreign ownership of two of the big four — JBS and National Beef — as a national-security concern, framing Brazilian control of major U.S. processing capacity as a strategic vulnerability.
White House senior trade adviser Peter Navarro said the combination of a historically tight cattle supply, dominant processors, and foreign ownership has fueled beef inflation, and was particularly pointed about JBS’s political spending in the United States. “I hasten to add here that the Brazilians are far more of the problem, and it’s complicated by the fact that the Brazilians, particularly JBS, hands out millions of dollars to our American political system like it’s candy,” Navarro said. “And the rate of return they get on that would make a Wall Street hedge fund blush, and we have got to put a stop to that.
Producer advocacy group R-CALF USA, which sent its property rights chair Shad Sullivan to the briefing, called the joint appearance by DOJ, USDA, and White House officials unprecedented. Sullivan told the gathering that the U.S. has lost more than 665,000 beef cattle operations — nearly half of all producers — since 1980, attributing the decline to decades of mergers and acquisitions and the rising influence of foreign meat conglomerates. “Farmers, ranchers, and American consumers have suffered for too long at the hands of consolidated power,” Sullivan said. R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard said his organization is grateful for the administration’s focus on market reform and urged industry insiders to come forward through the whistleblower program.
DOJ officials offered no timeline for charges or a civil suit but noted that criminal and civil antitrust inquiries can proceed in parallel. Spokespeople for Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters or Fox Business.
Separately, Blanche and Navarro said the DOJ plans to settle its long-running case against data company Agri Stats, whose weekly reports on meat pricing and sales the government has alleged enabled anti-competitive coordination in the chicken, pork, and turkey industries. The case had been scheduled to go to trial this month. Agri Stats has called the claims baseless and said its services result in lower prices.
Sources: Reuters; Fox Business; R-CALF USA
View the full press conference below:
