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.
Wait, McDonald’s uses real beef?
They use the trade marked “Real Beef”.
Real Beef™
(May contain raccoon and/or armadillo harvested from American highways.)
Armadillo is good eatin’.
So you’re saying they should start selling the McAdillo?
Good. The beef packers already got slapped with a FTC suit for price fixing.
Now that I’m vegan these articles are so bizarre to me. Oh the price of corpse has gone up? And the industry that produces said corpse is price gouging? That’s nice I’ll have these lovely inexpensive chick peas for dinner and not participate in death and abuse and rape, and my health will be better for it. It’s pretty easy to do.
Oh the ironing
Thank god we have Good guy McDonald’s going after the evil natural beef guys….wait
And they’ll certainly reduce their prices once they get their supply chain work down right? … Right?
Drag thinks McDonald’s is evil and so is Big Beef. Natural beef is bad. Lab beef and imitation beef are ethical.
“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.
We’ll isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black. The restaurant chain famous for jacking prices up while shrinking portion sizes and generally screwing their customers in every way they can doesn’t like it when they are getting taken advantage of. Cry me a fucking river. Fuck you McDogsBreath!
To be fair, the screwing flows downriver. If the sourcers start getting greedy, the business has to make up the difference by increasing prices.
Don’t forget about screwing their workers.
Yeah, I dunno how I missed this article. Makes me laugh that McD’s is going to try something like this.
https://www.newsweek.com/mcdonalds-inflation-economy-price-increase-joe-biden-1905209
TheStreet reported that Medium French Fries went from $1.79 in 2019 to $4.19 in 2024, a 134.1 percent increase. A McChicken went from $1.29 to $3.89, a 201.6 percent hike.
The price of the beloved Big Mac increased 87.7 percent, from $3.99 to $7.49. An order of 10 McNuggets rose by 68.8 percent, from $4.49 to $7.58. Of the five popular products examined, cheeseburgers saw the largest price increase—going from $1 to $3.15, a 215 percent spike.
These increases exceed the general average for inflation calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows that prices went up by about 21.5 percent between the end of 2019 and March 2024.
Drag thinks that McDonald’s price gouging its customers is good. It forces people to eat less meat. Drag’s switch to veganism was probably helped by McDonald’s having outrageous prices.
Drag is forcing other people to block Drag. Bye Drag.
What’s the deal with this person anyways? I’ve never seen a single comment from them that wasn’t in the negatives
I will be thoroughly stunned if the huge settlement they may get actually results in lower prices for customers.
Said one quasi monopolist to the other…
What? How on earth is mcdonalds a monopoly in any way?
Maybe not a real monopoly, but a sufficiently big player that usually has no problems of using their buying power to squeeze the blood out of their suppliers.
I’d be OK with giant corporations as if they were actually competing with each other for consumers and labor, paying their fair share of taxes, and weren’t allowed to use their revenue to subvert the will of the people by buying politicians.
The problem is that it takes a strong FTC, IRS, NLRB, FEC to ensure the above things, and we know how Republicans and billionaires feel about that.
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.
If it’s beef, they why have their chicken nuggets also doubled in price in the last couple of years? Oh, this goes back almost a decade you say? So why did you double or triple prices post pandemic?
Yeah chicken prices are absolutely insane.
Dude it’s literally right there at the beginning of the post
The fast food giant is suing the U.S. meat industry’s “Big Four” — Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef Packing Company
You can’t honestly think McDonald’s trying to blame their massive price increases solely on their meat providers is valid.
I said nothing of the sort. I was responding to the OPs question.
If it’s beef, they why have their chicken nuggets also doubled in price in the last couple of years?
It’s right fucking there at the beginning. They’re suing Tyson chicken as well.
You can get mad at me, but I’m far from the only one who thought that’s what you were suggesting.
I’m not responsible for your’s or anyone else’s reading comprehension.
I’m pretty sure being understood is, in fact, the responsibility of the person making a comment.
If I were to misunderstand what you just said, would it be my fault or yours?
It’s right fucking there at the beginning. They’re suing Tyson chicken as well.
Wat.
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.
Where do you see anything about chicken? Are you under the impression that Tyson only deals in chicken?
It’s “right fucking there at the beginning.” It says “beef specifically.”
It might be valid, but there’s no way McD’s was harmed. Their customers sure got that price fixing damage passed onto them, though.
It’s just over 11$ for 2 large fries. McD should also get sued. I feel like they’re just trying pass 100% of the blame on to their suppliers, after they’ve continued to post record profits year over year. They not only weren’t harmed, they’ve thrived and have been making even more money by price gouging. McD is as much, if not more culpable for inflating prices, than the meat packers.
You can get great deals in the app, all you have to do is let them harvest your data and “dark pattern” you into exclusively eating McDonald’s.
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.
Don’t forget they did that several times!
Corporations are the real welfare queens.
not sure I’d say queens, perhaps parasites would best fit that sentence
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.
At great expense to the health of the people and the climate
McDonald’s should become their own meat packer and interface with the farmers direct. Everyone gets the best deal that way and cut out the asshole middleman driving everything through the roof.
They’ve tried. Wendy’s QSCC has tried. Walmart is trying. It’s hard to be a beef packer. You have to sell the rest of the animal too, and now you’re just a filthy beef packer yourself. Also sadly impossible to interface with ranchers direct, still must be fed out at a feed yard.
Ahh yeah, good point. I didn’t think about the feed lot portion.
No one but Ron can gouge on the meat. holding comically large baseball bat
Any bets on how long it will take Fucker Carlson to start deriding McDonalds?
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.
