“This is a time of near record high beef prices and demand for beef,” Osborn wrote on X. Because the packers control so much of the market, even a temporary reduction of kills immediately depressed market prices. “Even with the drastic collapse in fed cattle prices caused by [the Big Four’s] conspiracy,” the lawsuit claims, the meatpackers “continued to benefit from record beef prices”, allowing them “to post record per-head meat margins”. View image in fullscreen Beef cattle in pens, their last stop moments before slaughter at the JBS Beef plant, in June 2015. And though the Big Four complain that the meat margin has been reduced by rising cattle prices, their earnings remain strong.

Source: The Guardian February 25, 2026 11:14 UTC