A few days ago, 18 states and the DOJ Antitrust Division signed a series of decrees with three major egg producers, Cal-Maine, Versova, and Hickman’s Egg Ranch, the largest egg producers in the country. The allegation, backed with hard-to-refute evidence including quotes from CEOs, is these entities operated a naked conspiracy to manipulate the price of eggs from 2022-2025. That was exactly the time bird flu on poultry farms was ripping through the supply chain for egg production.
But lo and behold, this complaint has stone cold evidence. It includes many statements from egg producer CEOs emailing and texting one another on how to manipulate prices upward. And it turns out, when they felt threatened by legal action, the alleged price-fixing stopped. Suddenly, the avian flu epidemic was no longer pushing up prices.
The alleged scam went on for years. Until the holiday season in 2024, the egg producers “continued to lobby Urner Barry,” asking the pricing index to hike its published prices and to ignore transactions at lower prices from non-conspirators when doing its benchmarking. So what finally ended the alleged conspiracy? It turns out that “price quotations dropped significantly from their February 2025 peak after Defendants learned of the Department of Justice investigation and were instructed to preserve documents on March 5, 2025.”
Still, what a profitable conspiracy it was. Cal-Maine made more than $1 billion in profits in 2023, triple its 2022 earnings. And it made $1.8 billion in 2024, almost entirely as a result of higher prices.
Still, they all got caught. So how much trouble are they in? Well according to the settlement, the egg producers must pay in aggregate $3 million in penalties, must donate 53 million eggs to food banks, and can no longer fix prices. Cal-Maine was the ringleader here – it had to donate 30 million eggs, Versova gave 20 million, and Centrum donated 3 million.
Importantly, these firms also admitted no wrongdoing, meaning there can be no follow-on civil suits for victims using such admissions. Restaurants and consumers who paid for eggs are out of luck. And the alleged conspirators are released from all claims.
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A few days ago, 18 states and the DOJ Antitrust Division signed a series of decrees with three major egg producers, Cal-Maine, Versova, and Hickman’s Egg Ranch, the largest egg producers in the country. The allegation, backed with hard-to-refute evidence including quotes from CEOs, is these entities operated a naked conspiracy to manipulate the price of eggs from 2022-2025. That was exactly the time bird flu on poultry farms was ripping through the supply chain for egg production.
But lo and behold, this complaint has stone cold evidence. It includes many statements from egg producer CEOs emailing and texting one another on how to manipulate prices upward. And it turns out, when they felt threatened by legal action, the alleged price-fixing stopped. Suddenly, the avian flu epidemic was no longer pushing up prices.
The alleged scam went on for years. Until the holiday season in 2024, the egg producers “continued to lobby Urner Barry,” asking the pricing index to hike its published prices and to ignore transactions at lower prices from non-conspirators when doing its benchmarking. So what finally ended the alleged conspiracy? It turns out that “price quotations dropped significantly from their February 2025 peak after Defendants learned of the Department of Justice investigation and were instructed to preserve documents on March 5, 2025.”
Still, what a profitable conspiracy it was. Cal-Maine made more than $1 billion in profits in 2023, triple its 2022 earnings. And it made $1.8 billion in 2024, almost entirely as a result of higher prices.
Still, they all got caught. So how much trouble are they in? Well according to the settlement, the egg producers must pay in aggregate $3 million in penalties, must donate 53 million eggs to food banks, and can no longer fix prices. Cal-Maine was the ringleader here – it had to donate 30 million eggs, Versova gave 20 million, and Centrum donated 3 million.
Importantly, these firms also admitted no wrongdoing, meaning there can be no follow-on civil suits for victims using such admissions. Restaurants and consumers who paid for eggs are out of luck. And the alleged conspirators are released from all claims.