“Around 40 percent of all potatoes grown in the United States are sold to frozen potato companies — 17 billion pounds annually,” the lawsuit said. Four firms then buy the potatoes, prepare and freeze them before packaging them.
While there were over a dozen companies 20 years ago, that number has slowly shrunk to just four. They’re named: Lamb Weston, Canada-based company McCain Foods, the J.R. Simplot Company, and Cavendish Farms. The first two control about 70% of the market, while J.R. Simplot manages about 20%, the report says.
They’ve all told restaurants and bars that they’ll increase prices by $0.12 per pound in April.
“It was just the most obvious example of collusion I’ve seen in a long time,” said Washington, D.C., bar owner Josh Saltzman. “All of them were raising their prices by virtually the exact same amount within a week of each other.”
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What’s with downvoting quotes from the article?
Probably because they were already quoted in the post and look like attempts to get upvotes?
Ah - fair enough then. I read the article first. Thilly me.