Concentration in the U.S. Food Industry Drives Up Prices

As summer barbecue season arrives, expect to see high beef prices. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that grilled sirloin now costs over $14 per pound on average, reflecting a 20% increase from last year.

This month, President Trump considered reducing tariffs on beef from countries like Argentina to lower prices. However, such actions are insufficient to address the underlying issue. The meat supply has been dominated by a few corporations for decades. In 2025, over 45% of U.S. cattle went through only 11 meat processing plants. By 2024, the top four packers accounted for 80-85% of all domestic beef sales.

In March, Senator Chuck Schumer put forward a bill to dismantle dominant beef packers, including JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill, and National Beef. Although the Trump administration generally avoids regulating large corporations, it has initiated investigations into beef packers and egg processors for potential antitrust violations related to price hikes during the avian flu outbreak.

For these investigations to have an impact, regulators must enforce aggressive legal actions based on their findings. Schumer’s bill offers a structural solution with potential bipartisan support, a rarity in recent years.

The U.S. food system is highly concentrated, exploitative, and fragile.

In 2020, two companies sold half of all fresh bread. By 2022, two others controlled about two-thirds of baby formula. In 2023, approximately 60% of all carrots were produced by just two companies. As a result, food prices remained high after rising around 30% from 2019 to 2025. Corporations capitalized on pandemic-related supply chain disruptions to increase prices and profits.

This extreme concentration was not unavoidable. It stems from decades-long failures to enforce anti-merger laws in place since 1890. Starting with the Reagan administration, federal regulators from both Republican and Democratic backgrounds largely ignored corporate consolidation. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission adopted Wall Street’s belief that mergers lead to efficiencies and promise lower consumer prices.