As I recall during the whole thing the news was non-stop about how it was related to broad-based inflation, chicken culling for avian flu, etc. Seems like all that was a lie, or at least merely a half-truth.
The consolidation of food production in the US is a risk to us all.
The collusion quotes in this article start in October 2022, though it doesn't say exactly when the collusion started.
As far as I can tell, avian flu did create a supply shock, which did raise prices. When the avian flu problem started going away, the egg companies started colluding to try to keep the egg prices high.
> Meanwhile, in context and during the class period, egg producers like Cal-Maine increased egg prices by as much as 270% in 2023 despite having zero Avian Flu outbreaks in their egg laying hen layers on Cal-Maine affiliated farms (https://www.classaction.org/news/antitrust-lawsuit-says-prod...)
The criminal conspiracy part here was manipulating the index prices in tandem so that everybody raised prices in lockstep.
How much did supply go down considering that Cal-Maine Foods, Inc is (or at least was) the single largest supplier of eggs in the country? Ultimately their profits increased 718% (https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/business/egg-profits-cal-main...) which seems unlikely to be explained away by reduced supply. They were price gouging and fixing prices with the other large suppliers to prevent consumers from just switching to those brands while small egg producers may have had issues with avian flu keeping their fairly priced products off the shelves.
> small egg producers may have had issues with avian flu keeping their fairly priced products off the shelves.
They didn't had the product though! This is main part of the reason price went up in 2022. It's either that or no eggs on the shelves.
[0]https://agdatanews.substack.com/p/americans-really-like-eggs
But also, the news isn’t privy to an actual price fixing conspiracy while it’s happening. To the extent that a news org reports on it, it’s because someone within the system grows some ethics (very hard to burn a bridge when it means no more revenue in the industry). It took even the regulators years to build a case for it.
People have long complained about the consolidation of the chicken production chain in the US. Only 2-3 major companies control most of the supply via contracts. The farms are required to follow the terms of the contract closely when raising chickens or risk getting locked out of the major distributors. Post-consolidation, the industry is ripe for abuse.
The combination of very strong contract enforcement and weak regulatory enforcement means the industry is effectively rent-seeking by design. This much was known, but without subpoena power, actual price fixing is just a suspicion.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/hatching-a-conspiracy-a-b...
There's a significant number of pathogens, er I mean, vaccines, that are tested and/or cultured only inside of eggs, and for the seasonal flu vaccines, those pathogen factories are unfathomably gigantic in scale.
So essentially, any drain on the supply of chicken eggs for the consumer market may be attributed to the overwhelming and ever-increasing demand from the pharmaceutical industry to use up these eggs so that they can grow viruses, bacteria, and other nasties to, er, checks notes inoculate the population and keep the world safe for democracy. That's the ticket.
(Or so I was told. Might even be the reason we have Trump 2.0?)
The investigation started during Biden’s term as president.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/07/doj-investigation-e...
Listen to different sources then. It's weird to complain that when you listened to overt pathological liars, all you heard were lies.
(I've recognized them as liars since Day 1, but I only get my one vote. Apparently my sarcasm in previous comments was unrecognizable.)
From whom did you only hear that? Newsmax? The Drudge Report?
(I'm beginning to think some people missed the sarcasm in my earlier posts.)
Yep. Given the forum and that you've been around here at least ten years, why would you think folks wouldn't take you at your word?
Be aware of Poe's Law[0]. Especially since there are way too many folks (I can think of at least a dozen or so off the top of my head) who would say the same thing unironically.