(The Center Square) – In a definitive boost to a top five component of North Carolina’s No. 1 industry, the Trump administration has scored a litigation settlement thwarting increases to the cost of living.
Pending the expected approval of a federal judge Agri Stats, a data-sharing and consulting company operating in the broiler chicken market with historical ties to pork and turkey, will be required to stop publishing some of its reports, limit data collection and make the reports available to all buyers and sellers. First-term Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson said meat producers were able to set higher meat prices because of access to secret data attributed to Agri Stats.
Omeed A. Assefi, of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, said, “The American people should not have to tolerate business models that only increase their cost of living. This settlement delivers immediate relief in the meat section of grocery stores across our nation.”
Agriculture is a $102 billion annual business for North Carolina. Measuring by production, North Carolina is No. 4 nationally in broilers (chickens).
Plaintiffs were the United States of America, represented by the Justice Department, and the states of Minnesota, California, Tennessee, Texas and Utah in addition to the Old North State. Agri Stats alone was the defendant in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.
North Carolina under then-Attorney General Josh Stein joined the filing in 2023.
“This is exactly the kind of rigged game that upsets people, and we’re here to take it down,” Jackson said. “Meat processors had a secret tool that helped them raise prices on chicken, pork, and turkey. Families paid higher prices so a handful of companies could profit off information no one else was allowed to see. That’s not a market, it’s an illegal conspiracy – and we just ended it.”
North Carolina is No. 2 in turkeys production and No. 3 in hogs production.
Todd Blanche, leading the nation’s attorney general office, said, “A stable and affordable food supply is critical to our country’s well-being. This Department of Justice is laser-focused on making everyday life affordable for all Americans.”
Agri Stats, according to the settlement, will have to:
• Stop providing any sales reports or nonpublic pricing information, which chicken, pork, and turkey processors have systematically used to identify opportunities to increase prices.
• Stop reporting production, cost, and labor data at either the company or facility level, which enabled competing processors to adjust output, pricing, or both based on near-total visibility into their rivals’ operations.
• Make the vast majority of information that Agri Stats distributes available to all interested domestic purchasers on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, eliminating the asymmetry of its prior information sharing and increasing market transparency.
• Adhere to restrictions on the timeliness of the information that Agri Stats shares.
• Report to a court-approved monitor selected by the Department of Justice who will be responsible for reporting on and ensuring compliance with the proposed settlement.
• Establish an antitrust compliance program to ensure data security, whistleblower protections, and mandatory reporting of any future potential violations of the antitrust laws.
Jackson said at one point, Agri Stats subscribers processed about 95% of the broiler chicken in the country.
