Walmart Hits Top Chicken Producers With Price-Fixing Lawsuit (1)

Walmart Inc. is accusing Koch Foods Inc., Perdue Farms Inc., Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., Sanderson Farms Inc., and two dozen other chicken producers of propping up prices through a conspiracy to cull “breeder flocks.”

Chicken farmers traditionally dealt with falling prices by destroying eggs or killing hatchlings, making it easy for them to ramp production up when prices recovered, according to the May 24 complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. That would eventually lead to overproduction, another price drop, and more countermeasures by growers.

But the major players in the $30 billion ...