DOJ expands beef price investigation to Walmart, – Business News
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division on Tuesday mentioned it had expanded its investigation into beef affordability to embody eight of the most important grocery retailers within the United States.
The growth comes after the DOJ launched an antitrust probe in May into the “Big Four” meatpackers — JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods and National Beef — which the division mentioned control more than 85% of the US beef processing market.
Tuesday’s announcement expands the federal authorities’s scrutiny to the retail degree of the food provide chain.
The DOJ mentioned the retailers beneath investigation are Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Albertsons, Aldi, Ahold Delhaize, Costco and Amazon.
Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. despatched letters to the eight corporations relating to “recent increases in the retail price for beef,” in accordance to the Justice Department.
“Beef prices are a critical concern to Americans, and a priority for this Justice Department,” the DOJ wrote on X.
The DOJ expanded its beef price antitrust probe to eight main retailers, together with Walmart, Costco, Amazon and Kroger, over rising food prices. Getty Images
FOX Business has reached out to the Justice Department for extra info and copies of the letters.
After asserting its investigation into potential antitrust violations in US cattle and beef markets in May, the Justice Department mentioned it was reviewing more than 3 million paperwork and interviewing industry contributors.
Federal officers have been inspecting whether or not focus within the meatpacking industry has contributed to high beef costs.
The growth comes after the DOJ launched an antitrust probe in May into the “Big Four” meatpackers — JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods and National Beef — which the division mentioned control more than 85% of the US beef processing market. Getty Images
Attorney General Todd Blanche mentioned at a information convention on the time that whistleblowers might obtain substantial rewards for offering info that leads to profitable enforcement actions.
“If the information you provide helps us secure a criminal penalty in excess of $1 million, you can be entitled to recover and receive 15% to 30% of the money that we recover,” Blanche mentioned, describing the DOJ’s whistleblower rewards program.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins additionally tied the probe to broader issues about food security and shrinking home cattle provides, saying the US had about 86.2 million head of cattle and calves as of Jan. 1 — “the lowest since the 1950s.”
Ground beef is seen for sale at a grocery store in Houston, Texas, on Aug. 24, 2026. AFP by way of Getty Images
Last week, President Donald Trump mentioned he would authorize the drafting of legal paperwork geared toward giving farmers and ranchers “the right to process their own food,” casting the transfer as an effort to break what he known as a “nasty monopoly” within the meat industry.
The transfer was meant to give ranchers one other means across the highly effective meatpacking corporations that stand between their cattle and grocery-store cabinets, following backlash in farm nation over Trump’s choice to permit more overseas beef imports.
Trump’s announcement got here after cattle producers and a few Republicans pushed back on his plan to quickly permit tariff-free imports of up to 300,000 metric tons of overseas beef, a transfer meant to ease stress on customers dealing with high costs on the meat counter.
FOX Business has additionally reached out to Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Albertsons, Aldi, Ahold Delhaize, Costco and Amazon for remark.
