In May, as McDonald’s continued to swat down lingering rumors that the chain was asking an exorbitant $18 for a Big Mac meal at locations across the country, company president Joe Erlinger wrote an open letter to Golden Arches customers, attempting to explain the inflationary pressures contributing to increased prices. He cited rising labor, food and paper costs among the factors affecting the price diners paid for their burgers, fries and sodas.
Erlinger denied that McDonald’s price hikes were double or triple the rate of inflation. But he acknowledged that, from 2019 to 2024, the average price of McDonald’s menu items had gone up 40 percent.
What the executive didn’t mention — but was painstakingly detailed in a lawsuit filed Oct. 4 in a New York federal court — was the company’s allegation that the world’s largest meat processors have been conspiring since at least 2015 to limit beef supplies, leading to elevated prices for the meat they’ve sold to McDonald’s and others.
“The goal of their conspiracy was to fix, raise, stabilize and/or maintain the price of beef sold to Plaintiff and others at supra-competitive levels — that is, prices artificially higher than beef prices would have been in the absence of their conspiracy,” McDonald’s attorneys allege in their complaint. The lawsuit names Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS and National Beef Packing as defendants. These companies sold “approximately 80 percent of the more than 25 million pounds of fresh and frozen beef supplied to the U.S. market” in 2018, the lawsuit contends.
McDonald’s is just the latest plaintiff to accuse the big four meatpackers of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Ranchers, cattle sellers, consumers and beef buyers have also sued Tyson, Cargill, JBS and National Beef over similar allegations. The complaints have been consolidated in Minnesota federal court.
Tyson, Cargill, National Beef and JBS did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. But the companies have denied the allegations in other cases. McDonald’s also did not respond to a request for comment.
Read full story at The Washington Post.
