Washington, D.C. — This morning, the American Economic Liberties Project hosted a news conference where Sens. Schumer, Welch, Gallego, and Booker formally unveiled Sen. Schumer’s Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act, backed by 12 Democratic senators, which would break up the Big Four meatpackers that have driven meat prices to record levels while squeezing producers. Economic Liberties and partners released the following statement.

“At the American Economic Liberties Project, we’ve spent years building the legal and policy case for breaking up monopolies and oligopolies alongside the farmers, pharmacists, small business owners, workers and Americans who are squeezed, cheated, and harmed by their illegal business tactics,” said Nidhi Hegde, Executive Director at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Today, we’re proud to stand with a broad coalition of allies in support of a bill that would break up the Big Four meatpackers that have used their concentrated power to exploit producers and raise prices for shoppers. This is a common-sense, pro-market reform that would benefit all Americans, and it should be a bipartisan no-brainer in Congress.”

“Beef prices are through the roof. But cattlemen aren’t getting rich. It’s a tiny handful of corporate middlemen that’s raking in profits,” said Alvaro Bedoya, former FTC Commissioner and Senior Advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project. “This bill will  give our cattlemen a level playing field and bring down the price of ground beef at the grocery store.”

“In my many years of advocating for change in the system that has created a bottleneck for independent American family farmers, this legislation offers real hope to allow them the resources to put their products on the tables of American families,” said Carrie Balkcom, Executive Director at the American Grassfed Association.

“The extreme concentration of power in our food system is driving 63 farmers a day off their land, hollowing out small businesses on Main Street, and leaving families struggling to afford food. When a handful of corporations control our meat supply, farmers have too few buyers and consumers pay too much at the grocery store,” said Joe Maxwell, President of Farm Action Fund. “Today, Senator Schumer has taken an important step toward restoring competition and fairness to America’s food system by standing up to the dominant meatpackers. I am grateful for his leadership and for the opportunity to begin rebuilding markets that work for farmers, workers, and families.”

“Independent restaurants are among the most direct and vulnerable endpoints of a broken meat supply chain. When meatpacking is this concentrated — four firms controlling 85 percent of beef processing — pricing power flows entirely upstream, away from the farmers raising the animals and the restaurants buying the product, and straight to a handful of corporate processors. Our members are running on margins of three to five percent. A sustained spike in beef or pork prices doesn’t just affect the menu, it triggers a cascade: increased menu pricing or significant menu changes, fewer guests, smaller teams, deferred maintenance, and in too many cases, closed doors,” said Erika Polmar, Executive Director of the Independent Restaurant Coalition. “The Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act takes meaningful aim at the consolidation driving these dynamics, and the provisions encouraging farmer cooperatives and small processors to acquire divested facilities could begin rebuilding the competitive market infrastructure independent restaurants desperately need. We are grateful for Senator Schumer’s commitment to  tackling concentration at its source and for understanding that restoring competition in meatpacking is inseparable from the survival of the independent restaurant industry and the millions of workers and communities it supports.”

In recent decades, weak antitrust enforcement has allowed the Big Four meatpackers—JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and National Beef—to gain control of 85% of beef processing in the US, as well as large shares of pork and poultry processing. There is reason to believe this market power is further enhanced by price-fixing and collusion, which the Big Four have been regularly accused of for years, including by the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. 

This market structure has been devastating for consumers and producers. Americans are paying record prices for beef; chicken and pork prices have increased sharply over the last 15 years. And yet, producers‘ earnings as a share of each dollar spent have cratered. For beef, that share has declined from 70 cents of each dollar in 1970 to an unsustainable 30-40 cents in recent years. According to the USDA, between 2002 and 2022, roughly 58,000 cattle feedlots (72% of the 2002 total) and 18,000 hog farms (23%) exited the market.

The Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act would address this crisis by requiring the dominant meatpackers to divest plants in cattle and beef markets where they hold excessive market share, and divest their assets in chicken and pork lines of business entirely. The Act would also provide financial support for small and midsize processors, as well as farmers and workers’ cooperatives, to buy the divested plants of the dominant incumbents. And it would take decisive steps to free the meat and poultry supply chains of exclusionary practices — assuring those new, independent processors that they will have a fair opportunity to compete.

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