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.

  • @jaybone
    link
    124 hours ago

    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?

    • @bitwaba
      link
      54 hours ago

      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

      • Flying Squid
        link
        74 hours ago

        You can’t honestly think McDonald’s trying to blame their massive price increases solely on their meat providers is valid.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    158 hours ago

    Can we sue McDonald for all that they did to artificially decrease the cost of beef, and the immense harm that was done to the climate as a result?

        • Dragon "Rider"(drag)
          link
          fedilink
          English
          -34 hours ago

          Drag doesn’t eat drag’s friends unless they’re into vore, and drag doesn’t think cows can consent to sex with drag, so no vore for the cows.

  • @stupidcasey
    link
    1711 hours ago

    Thank god we have Good guy McDonald’s going after the evil natural beef guys….wait

    • @linearchaos
      link
      English
      710 hours ago

      And they’ll certainly reduce their prices once they get their supply chain work down right? … Right?

    • Dragon "Rider"(drag)
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -17 hours ago

      Drag thinks McDonald’s is evil and so is Big Beef. Natural beef is bad. Lab beef and imitation beef are ethical.

  • magnetosphere
    link
    fedilink
    9016 hours ago

    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.

  • Track_Shovel
    link
    fedilink
    English
    3614 hours ago

    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.

    • 👍Maximum Derek👍
      link
      fedilink
      English
      3315 hours ago

      “I was talking to my colluding friends and they said you were doing a collusion on us. What the hell? We’re not the poors.”

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      1415 hours ago

      The worst part is, the average citizen anywhere in the world can not afford to do this. Only some other evil megacorporations

  • ThePowerOfGeek
    link
    English
    6416 hours ago

    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!

    • @PunnyName
      link
      3416 hours ago

      Don’t forget about screwing their workers.

    • FenrirIII
      link
      1114 hours ago

      To be fair, the screwing flows downriver. If the sourcers start getting greedy, the business has to make up the difference by increasing prices.

    • magnetosphere
      link
      fedilink
      1616 hours ago

      I will be thoroughly stunned if the huge settlement they may get actually results in lower prices for customers.

    • Dragon "Rider"(drag)
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -67 hours ago

      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.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    1613 hours ago

    Hey now, we should salute McDonalds for keeping Big Beef in check. Those prices trickle down to us! /s

    • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
      link
      fedilink
      English
      16 hours ago

      Beef, the meat kept artificially cheap in the US by 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.

    • Snot Flickerman
      link
      fedilink
      English
      69
      edit-2
      16 hours ago

      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.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    1315 hours ago

    I trust what McDonald’s is saying in this case. If anyone knows what collusion to inflate prices and fuck over clients looks like, it’s the place with the broken soft serve machines.

  • Flying Squid
    link
    1216 hours ago

    Wait, McDonald’s uses real beef?

  • m-p{3}
    link
    fedilink
    916 hours ago

    No one but Ron can gouge on the meat. holding comically large baseball bat

  • AmbiguousProps
    link
    fedilink
    English
    615 hours ago

    Someone should sue McDonald’s for the same thing. All of their prices (not just for beef) have been massively inflated for their profit. A meal there shouldn’t cost $12+ (I’ve seen as much as $15), it’s trash food. I haven’t been back in a long time.