Major pork producers accused of price-fixing

If you’ve bought ham, sausage, bacon or other pork products anytime since 2009, you may have overpaid.

That’s the allegation contained in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Minnesota, accusing some of the nation’s biggest pork producers of conspiring to fix prices.

The suit, filed by 13 grocery shoppers, claims pork processors shared private information about their companies with their competitors through an agricultural data service called Agri Stats.

By monitoring each other’s production – current and forward-looking sensitive details such as profits, costs, prices and slaughter information – they were able to control supply and price, the suit says.

The defendants are Agri Stats; Hormel Foods; Smithfield Foods; Tyson Foods; Clemens Foods, whose brands include Hatfield and Farm Promise; Indiana Packers, sold in stores as Indiana Kitchen; JBS USA; Seaboard Foods, known for its Prairie Fresh line; and Triumph Foods. Together, the suit says they control more than 80 percent of the $20 billion wholesale pork market.

Agri Stats, Smithfield, Clemens, Indiana Packers, JBS USA, Seaboard Foods and Triumph Foods didn’t respond to requests for reaction to the suit.

Tyson said it hadn’t received formal notice of the lawsuit and couldn’t comment.

Hormel said that it’s “a 127-year-old global branded food company with a reputation as one of the most respected companies in the food industry. We are confident that any allegations such as these are completely without merit. We intend to vigorously defend this lawsuit.”

The law firm representing the plaintiffs, Hagens Berman, says it is trying to find other consumers who bought pork or pork products, such as Ball Park Franks, Hillshire Farm, Jennie-O, Jimmy Dean, Nathan’s Famous, Spam and Steak-eze.

“We want the market to operate so consumers get to decide what products they want to buy,” said Michael Carrier, an antitrust expert at Rutgers University School of Law.

“When competitors get together and agree how much output will be, what the price will be, they are evading the economic system that’s at the heart of this country.”