U.S. ‘potato cartel’ sued for raising prices

A ‘potato cartel’ may be responsible for rising french fry prices.

Four companies that produce and sell frozen potato products in the United States, conspired to artificially fix the prices of their spuds by sharing trade information and coordinating price raises beginning in 2021, according to the antitrust lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in the past week.

The alleged tater plot by Cavendish Farms, Lamb Weston, McCain Foods and the J.R. Simplot Co, which control more than 95 percent of the market for frozen potato products, led prices for those products to increase by 47 percent between July 2022 and 2024, the lawsuits say.

Caption from article by Daniel Wu.

[_Dalee_]

"I'm not your pal, spud" is genius

[Zetagipp]

I’m glad this is getting coverage, its anti-consumer practices like these that are causing all the economic stress.

[maritimeretro]

Yeah remember during the pandemic when advisory watchdogs were accusing basically everyone of price fixing and gouging but we were just told it that it was inflation?

[neonradius]

In my high school economics class we played a supply and demand game where half of the students were sellers and the other half were buyers, and the goal was for the sellers to sell at the highest price possible. Less than halfway through I turned to the other sellers and was like “Hey, let’s just all raise our prices, the buyers have to buy for the game to work so they’ll be forced to”

Our economics teacher helpfully told us that that’s called price fixing and it’s illegal (at least, it’s supposed to be).

[MyChevySonic]

"Everybody did this."

"Everybody's getting sued."

"Oh."

[rukiakuckiki]

It's kind of crazy how there's corruption in potatoes

[thewatcher]

Hey, this reminds me of the egg producers doing the EXACT SAME THING.

[m.theresa]

Shopping for thanksgiving I compared the prices of some items that I commonly shop for and was stunned at how much many of them had crept up in price – and it’s only gonna get worse if they start adding tariffs to some of the import products that I commonly use (avocados. Tomatoes etc.). Insane.

[pavelgl]

Why would anyone want to freeze potatoes? I'm from Belarus, and here fresh potatoes can be stored for several months in a chill dark place and do not spoil.

[cfv]

The market will regulate itself

The market:

[CptFUBAR]

I strongly feel this whole skit was based around the "I'm not your pal, spud!" 😂

[MarineSn]

It's almost like the price hike of groceries has been corporate greed, not inflation...

[Crypticat]

i remember learning about this in economics, we had a activity where we had to set prices on our products when random events happened, and if we talked to other groups we would get in a lot of trouble, my classmates just kept shouting "stop colluding with me!" when another group tried talking to them, even if it wasn't about prices 😭

[holajza]

Remember, when we have nothing left to eat, we still have the rich

[allinshambles]

I really want to encourage this type of news delivery even though i hate how entertainment-centric America has become at times i think this is a most welcome necessary evil (also just a fantastic skit i wonder if you had to tell your boss "yeah i need the boiler room for an hour just trust me")

[pennyforathought]

First the banana cartel and now the potato cartel? What’s next?!

[ulogy]

I love that McCain is what my province in Canada is most known for.

And that Cavendish was another provincial counterpart who heard McCain was moving in on their turf, so they made a SPITE POTATO COMPANY.

[celieneohara]

Yeah they did! I remember the jump! It was drastic. I stopped buying frozen potatoes AND potato chips!

[iamsiley]

What??!?!
Corporate business is being corrupt??? Who could've thought?

[Respectable_Username]

Thank you once again Lina Khan! She is a treasure who must be protected as FTC chair at all costs if we want to make sure the marketplace actually continues to be held to account!