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US Meat Industry Pushes Back On ‘price-gouging’ Plan
US meat industry pushes back on ‘price-gouging’ plan
By Elizabeth Scnroeder | 23 August 2024 | 4:14 pm
Trade groups in the US are pushing back against a plan announced by Vice-President Kamala Harris to place a federal ban on “price gouging” in the grocery industry.
Speaking in Raleigh, North Carolina, she reportedly said that the plan would include penalties for “companies that exploit crises and break the rules” and policy that supports small businesses “trying to play by the rules”.
The Agriculture Dive website reported that the cost of groceries in the US had remained high following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trade groups such as the Meat Institute and the National Chicken Council said her plan unfairly targeted and blamed the meat and poultry companies as the drivers of elevated inflation in that country.
Julie Anna Potts, CEO and president of the Meat Institute, said in a statement that, although still elevated, food prices were coming down from the highs experienced during the pandemic due to
“supply and demand factors, including bird flu issues, a prolonged shortage of cattle, and high input costs”.
“A federal ban on price gouging does not address the real causes of inflation,” Potts said.
Agriculture Dive reported that as part of Harris’s campaign to lower costs for middle-class families, she stressed the importance of reducing grocery prices against the back of some of the largest food companies in the US reporting their highest profits in two decades.
She said during her address that while supply chains had generally recovered, prices of food staples such as ground beef and bread remained 50% higher than before the pandemic.
“I know most businesses are creating jobs, contributing to our economy and playing by the rules, but some are not, and that’s just not right, and we need to take action when that is the case.”
In an effort to combat anti-competitive practices, Harris said she would continue to work for reduced consolidation in the food industry, thereby ensuring lower prices for Americans.
The US Agriculture Department (USDA) proposed a new rule in June in which it clarified how it would enforce competition rules in the meat and poultry industries, aimed at ensuring fairer markets and lower food costs.
Although Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declined to comment on Harris’s plan, Progressive Farmer reported that reported he said he was “happy with the partnership between the USDA and Justice Department in cracking down on potential antitrust violations”.
The USDA was nearing completion of a retail study that would “raise some valid questions and issues about practices within the industry that will ultimately impact and affect the price that people pay,” Vilsack said, according to Progressive Farmer.
However, interim president of the National Chicken Council, Gary Kushner, said in a statement that “it’s time for this administration to stop using the meat and poultry industry as a scapegoat and a distraction for the root causes of inflation and the significant challenges facing our economy”.
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