Sysco Accuses Tyson, JBS, Hormel of Pork Price-Fixing Scheme (1)

Sysco Corp. sued Tyson Foods Inc., JBS SA, Hormel Foods Corp., and other leading pork processors in a Houston federal court, alleging an industrywide conspiracy to raise prices by laundering secret information through proprietary agricultural databases.

Exchanges of “detailed, competitively sensitive, and closely guarded nonpublic” data about “capacity, sales, volume, and demand,” including the “profits, prices, costs, and production levels” of specific companies, are a “classic” way to implement and enforce “a price-fixing scheme,” the complaint says.

In addition to Tyson, JBS, Hormel, and “information sharing service” Agri Stats Inc., the antitrust lawsuit filed by Sysco—a top ...