Jury Finds Egg Producers Liable In Price-Fixing Scheme

From Law 360, behind a paywall (of Course):

An Illinois federal jury on Tuesday found the nation's two largest egg producers and two industry groups liable for conspiring to inflate egg prices through coordinated supply restrictions, setting the stage for a damages trial next week.

The story is actively coming out, so most outlets are holding it hostage behind subscriptions:

Link to Bloomberg

So it looks like a few months ago, Kraft and Kellogg went after some big egg producers for price fixing (illegal). Surely they didn't care about the people as a whole, it was likely just an issue of cutting into their own profits. They've tried doing this before during the tail end/shortly after the Recession, but to no avail. It looks like certain events in recent memory may have given them a little more evidence this time around? I'm assuming of course, because like most, I'm waiting for this to break on the regular news outlets that I don't have to pay for.

However............ How does this stack against everyone's assumptions that the last few years, even currently, that there were very few ACTUAL supply shortages, and the majority reasoning for massive price increases was artificial price fixing, self induced supply issues, and overall greed?

How many more of these lawsuits do you think will start coming out of the woodwork now that this one is gaining traction and going to trial?

Have at it, ATS.

(I understand it doesn't involve the desert on the other side of the planet so nobody is paying attention, but I personally find this rather noteworthy)

a reply to: dothedew

“How many more of these lawsuits do you think will start coming out of the woodwork now that this one is gaining traction and going to trial?”

Hopefully a lot!!! I’m a firm believer that some of the inflation was warranted. However, I believe the majority of it was in fact GREEDFLATION.

Anyone that tried to falsely capitalize on this whole mess, deserves to live in poverty the rest of their lives.

Whatever the amount that these assholes overcharged us, they should be required to donate double that amount to charity’s for the poor.

a reply to: KKLOCO

Hopefully a lot!!! I’m a firm believer that some of the inflation was warranted. However, I believe the majority of it was in fact GREEDFLATION.

There's a fine line between bumping up a price to make sure there is enough product to go around in times of need (contrary to what our government says, they LOVE shortages, because they can pass more laws and pretend to be the good guy while they create new problems) and rising higher and higher, and keeping it high when you have the ability and the means to get back to normal.

Something that I believe is the case with 95% of products and services available right now.

originally posted by: KKLOCO
a reply to: dothedew



Anyone that tried to falsely capitalize on this whole mess, deserves to live in poverty the rest of their lives.

Whatever the amount that these assholes overcharged us, they should be required to donate double that amount to charity’s for the poor.

I wonder why they haven't gone after the oil companies for conspiring and price fixing..... Or prescription drug manufactures.

I guess eggs is more important!

originally posted by: lilzazz

originally posted by: KKLOCO
a reply to: dothedew



Anyone that tried to falsely capitalize on this whole mess, deserves to live in poverty the rest of their lives.

Whatever the amount that these assholes overcharged us, they should be required to donate double that amount to charity’s for the poor.

I wonder why they haven't gone after the oil companies for conspiring and price fixing..... Or prescription drug manufactures.

I guess eggs is more important!

Good point.

I’d presume it’s because there’s not a lot of money in eggs for kickbacks to dirty politicians.

Oil and pharmaceuticals on the other hand…….

I’d like to see the discover in this case explain where and how all the chicken/egg farms came to calamitous demise.

Interesting it’s brought on by Kraft and Kellogg.

Guessing they could give a rip about the consumers.

So what got blowed up first?
And I don’t mean price wise.
The chickens or the eggs?

Ya know, facts matter and stuff.

Thought outbreak of HPAI was the reason for the Egg shortages/price hikes?
(highly pathogenic avian influenza) Along with the covid caused shortage of truck drivers.

I am literally sitting here eating a homemade BLT and it still aint cheap. I find it hilarious that corporations are starting to sue each other, maybe they'll eat each other.

For years the fast food companies and franchises have been making huge profits off cheap staples like Hamburger, Sausage, Eggs, breads and basic vegetables. The cost is high or these basic products now.

So all the fast food companies will now create even more cheap Frankenfoods for the consumer in order to profit.

Moral to the story. Stay away from Fast franken foods!

originally posted by: KKLOCO

originally posted by: lilzazz

originally posted by: KKLOCO
a reply to: dothedew



Anyone that tried to falsely capitalize on this whole mess, deserves to live in poverty the rest of their lives.

Whatever the amount that these assholes overcharged us, they should be required to donate double that amount to charity’s for the poor.

I wonder why they haven't gone after the oil companies for conspiring and price fixing..... Or prescription drug manufactures.

I guess eggs is more important!

Good point.

I’d presume it’s because there’s not a lot of money in eggs for kickbacks to dirty politicians.

Oil and pharmaceuticals on the other hand…….

This is very interesting.
Egg prices with a wholesale bottom is like 17 cents right now which is absolutely way to cheap based on inflation and feed costs.

What is being demonstrated here I think is big chicken egg suppliers get the benefits of "the egg act" and also the subsidies.
With rising feed costs and feed recipes changing to cheaper and inadequate feed ingredients, especially after covid, it has been driving out all the smaller farms and local producers.

This story does not make a lot of sense to me.

There is nothing you can buy for your family food that is better for you dollar-calories.
Even @$1.00 per egg which is just about where it should be retail for locally raised cage free chickens with adequate feed sources.

What we have all known for awhile now is big chicken farms that get subsidized have artificially kept prices down in order to drive all the small farms out of the market.

Until subsidies are taken into consideration this story makes no sense to me.

There has to be more to the equation for this story.

During covid, any chicken that sneezed had to be put down and disposed of, same thing happened with the bird flu sham. That practice was started by some agency in the government, and a lot of egg producers wound up loosing money. They were restricted from passing all the losses to the customers during the pandemic and after the pandemic ended, by agreement with the government, they were able to recoup losses.

I read a lot of articles on what was happening in the food industry during that time to observe risk factors and ways they were dealing with issues. To recoup those losses some sort of structure and communication had to be put into place, which normally would be illegal but since the government wanted to keep the food supply in a healthy way, they looked the other way for quite a while.

A cereal company would definitely want to have the egg companies go under so they could sell more products they make. After all, these cereal companies fabricated evidence to show eggs are bad for you and now it is being proven what they paid researchers to prove was misapplied, eggs are not bad for you in moderation now, in fact they are possibly better than many of the cereals out there. Kraft...they want cheap eggs for their salad dressings and mayo, yet they are probably not going to reduce the price of their products that went up because eggs were more expensive for a while. It is all about big companies making as much as they can. The defending of the lawsuit will raise the price of eggs, not lower it.