Why America Pays 50% More for Chicken
The $29 billion poultry industry has been accused of hatching a plan to limit production.
This article is for subscribers only.
What do you call it when would-be competitors embark on a unified strategy to limit supply, drive up prices, and bilk customers of their hard-earned cash? An antitrust conspiracy, of course. But what do you call it when producers of chickens, a staple of the American diet (Wall Street even has a chicken wing index), allegedly go so far as killing their birds early, shipping more eggs, and buying one another’s products to keep public supply low?
According to food distributors suing the industry, it’s called “capacity discipline.”