Rips ‘profiteering’

The Biden administration has a beef with “Big Meat.”

The White House slammed the four biggest companies in the meat industry, accusing them of “raising prices while generating record profits during the pandemic” and blaming them for soaring price inflation at grocery stores across the country. The companies responded by saying Biden’s economy is to blame.

In July, beef and veal prices were up 6.5 percent from a year earlier, while poultry prices were up 5.3 percent and pork prices were 7.8 percent higher, according to the Consumer Price Index. Prices for specific cuts varied.

But as prices for consumers go up, farmers and ranchers haven’t seen the amount they’re paid by giant meat companies rise, too, said White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese.

“It raises a concern about pandemic profiteering, about companies that are driving price increases in a way that hurts consumers who are going to the grocery store,” Deese said at a news briefing.

The Biden administration went so far as to call the four largest meat firms “middlemen” that use their “power to squeeze both consumers and farmers and ranchers.”

Those four firms are Minnesota-based Cargill, Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, Brazilbased JBS and Missouri-based National Beef Packing Co., owned by Brazilian beef producer Marfrig Global Foods.

Together, those companies slaughtered about 85 percent of US grain-fattened cattle that are made into steaks, roasts and other cuts of meat in 2018.

Tyson Foods fired back at the White House, calling the allegations “inaccurate” and claiming the meat industry has suffered from multiple market shocks due to “a global pandemic and severe weather conditions.”

“Issuing inflammatory statements that ignore the fundamentals of how supply and demand affects markets accomplishes nothing,” said Mark Dopp, COO of the North American Meat Institute, an industry group that represents meatpackers.