McDonald’s has some beef with today’s largest meat packers.
The fast food giant is suing the U.S. meat industry’s “Big Four” — Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef Packing Company — and their subsidiaries, alleging a price fixing scheme for beef specifically. In a federal complaint, filed Friday in New York, McDonald’s accused the companies of anticompetitive measures such as collectively limiting supply to boost prices and charge “illegally inflated” amounts.
This collusion caused the beef market to become “a monopoly in which direct purchasers were forced to buy at prices dictated by (the meat packers),” McDonald’s suit reads — later noting that the injury it has sustained as one of those buyers is what “antitrust laws were designed to prevent.”
McDonald’s alleges that the meat packers’ conspiracy dates back nearly a decade, at least as early as January 2015, and continues today. Its suit argues these companies’ actions violate the Sherman Act, a federal antitrust law.
Exactly my thoughts
Your greed is interfering with my greed, damn you!
“Company sues for what company does to customers because those profits are theirs”
“I was talking to my colluding friends and they said you were doing a collusion on us. What the hell? We’re not the poors.”
The worst part is, the average citizen anywhere in the world can not afford to do this. Only some other evil megacorporations
Hey everyone. This week, I challenge everyone to eat half as much beef as you normally would. If you eat 2 burgers a week, try just eating 1 and replace the other burger with a piece of chicken, or better yet, it’s autumn, and a ton of veggies are still fresh in season from the harvest.
McDonalds can sue the beef packers, but we can cripple their entire supply chain and maybe help the planet out a little bit.
A few years ago, I was hit hard with some food poisoning that had me in the hospital. I don’t remember what it was, but it made me tune into food recall reports.
And those recall reports are FREQUENT, and they’re mostly meat.
I’m not a vegetarian, but I cut beef out of my diet last year. Pork is my next one. Chicken is going to be really hard though.
For years I never thought I could do vegetarian because I would miss bacon and chicken. Over a decade later and both of those things are so far down in my list of things I miss.
I have beef maybe once or twice a month. Doing my part.
You had money for beef? Prices are sky high. My chicken, pork and fish intake dramatically increased?
0/2 = ???
I was wondering the same. Maybe vegetarians/vegans can buy a cow lunch, or something.
They fucked with McDonalds. Big mistake.
Big Mcsteak.
Only available for a Limited Time!
Sounds like something I’d buy
McGenius
“This is an absurd accusation. We make money by employing children and undocumented immigrants and violating safety standards, not by colluding on prices.” -US meat industry
not sure why, but i read this in J K Simmons’ voice.
Beef, the meat kept artificially cheap in the US by subsidies?
Well it’s a lot like all the ISPs taking fucktons of money over 25 years to “roll out fiber” and then just basically pocketing the money.
Corporations are the real welfare queens.
Corporations are the real welfare queens.
not sure I’d say queens, perhaps parasites would best fit that sentence
Don’t forget they did that several times!
At great expense to the health of the people and the climate
Beef, the meat kept artificially cheap
in the USby subsidies?FTFY, you are not alone in this stupidity. “Dutch Trump” Wilders got his votes because the government said that maybe the whole country should not be one big cattle farm.
Capitalist system
Big four fixing prices
ShockedPikachu.png
The system is working exactly as it’s designed to. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: captialism only encourages monopolies/cartels - that’s the whole point.
Can we sue McDonald for all that they did to artificially decrease the cost of beef, and the immense harm that was done to the climate as a result?
And the poor animals. Cows are friends not food
They can be both.
But mainly food.
Drag doesn’t eat drag’s friends unless they’re into vore, and drag doesn’t think cows can consent to sex with drag, so no vore for the cows.
Uhhh cows not being able to consent is the only reason you aren’t banging them? How the fuck do I unread something? Why speak in 3rd person? Lots of questions
Drag seems to be a roleplayer and if you look at drag’s profile, drag’s pronouns are the same in 1st 2nd and 3rd person.
Though I don’t know if drag realizes that means drag doesn’t need to speak in 3rd person, drag could speak in 1st person like this:
“Drag don’t eat drag’s friends unless they’re into vote and drag don’t think cows can consent to sex with drag, so no vore for the cows”
Replacing I/me with drag, as drag’s profile says is proper for first person.
Now whether drag is roleplaying for the fun of it or trying to make some point about pronouns, I have no idea.
Drag trolls does drag.
Drag thinks it’s disgusting that most people vore cows. It’s not right to vore something that can’t consent.
Fuckin’ yikes.
Hey now, we should salute McDonalds for keeping Big Beef in check. Those prices trickle down to us! /s
I trust what McDonald’s is saying in this case. If anyone knows what collusion to inflate prices and fuck over clients looks like, it’s the place with the broken soft serve machines.
Tell your boyfriend, if he says he’s got beef, that I’m a vegetarian and I ain’t fucking scared of him.
No one but Ron can gouge on the meat. holding comically large baseball bat
Someone should sue McDonald’s for the same thing. All of their prices (not just for beef) have been massively inflated for their profit. A meal there shouldn’t cost $12+ (I’ve seen as much as $15), it’s trash food. I haven’t been back in a long time.
I don’t know anything about the specifics here, but here’s a 5 year graph of futures for live cattle versus beef:
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/live-cattle
If there’s collusion to engage in price-fixing by meat packers, I’d expect to see beef prices rising without a corresponding increase in cattle prices.
Beef prices did indeed recently start rising rapidly without a corresponding increase in live cattle prices.
But on the other hand, beef prices are also a lot lower relative to live cattle prices than they were during roughly COVID-19.
TBF things look pretty different if you go back to 2015 like McDonald’s is alleging.
EDIT: To me, it really looks like COVID was the big factor impacting price though.
Oh, that’s a good point – missed that in the article. They did say that it started in 2015.
COVID wasn’t the only factor. What people don’t remember because of all the other crazy shit that happened was that we had a 3 year drought.
Prices still haven’t stabilized because it’s expensive to buy cattle right now. Prices will likely be in the shitter for another 1.5-2 years, and I’m not sure they’ll ever really come down in a way people notice.
Cattle retention has not even begun yet, you’re absolutely correct. There will be 2+ more years of higher beef prices, we’re still slaughtering more than are being born therefore cattle prices will continue to rise on a macro level.
I actually didn’t realize that. I was thinking we were coming to an end because my buddy’s ranch seems to have mostly recovered and he’s got more cattle now than he had a few years ago. But I guess I should look at the wider market instead of a single place if I’m going to comment about things.
McDonald’s has some beef with today’s largest meat packers.
I would have been disappointed if there wasn’t a line like this in the story somewhere. It practically writes itself.
