Top US chicken producers sued on price-fixing claims by buyers

AMERICA’S top chicken producers were accused of inf lating prices for over a decade, according to lawsuits filed by refrigerated-meal supplier in the United States, a supermarket chain and a convenience store operator.

Bob Evans Farms Inc., Fresh Market and Wawa Inc. said producers including top three Tyson Foods Inc., Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. and Sanderson Farms Inc. curtailed supplies to boost their profits, according to separate lawsuits filed Friday in federal court in Chicago. Buyers are now seeking damages for chicken purchased from as early as 2008 to at least late 2017.

The lawsuits are the latest against chicken companies and other meat producers over how their product is priced and workers are treated in the slaughterhouses that turn animals into food. The US Department of Justice earlier this year indicted Pilgrim’s Pride top boss for price-fixing.

“Historically, the chicken industry was marked by boom and bust cycles,” the chicken buyers said in their lawsuits, filed by the same law firm. “By their wrongful conduct as alleged in this complaint, defendants not only materially reduced or eliminated the historical boom and bust cycle of the chicken industry, they propped up chicken prices during periods of rapidly falling input costs.”

The suits, which also target Koch Foods Inc., Perdue Farms Inc. and Wayne Farms Llc, alleged producers inflated costs through methods including cutting production to manipulating price indices. Like a probe of the beef industry, the complaints also cite the highly concentrated nature of the chicken industry, with a few large players controlling supply.

Tyson, Pilgrim’s Pride and Sanderson Farms did not immediately reply to requests for comment, nor did the trade group National Chicken Council.