I was flabbergasted when I read the headline. But subsequent Googling revealed it was a real story. And McD’s is serious. Are the largest meat packers in the US fixing prices? Or are high beef prices the result of a ‘perfect economic storm’?
One way or another… We may never see big supermarket spreads of beef like this again…
… And that, they claim, is the REAL reason your favourite Fast Food burger now costs an average of 16 percent more than it did 5 years ago. It seems a grandio0se, even reckless lash-back against abiding consumer claims that the Burger chains have been artificially jacking up their menu prices.
The claim
McDonald’s has filed a lawsuit claiming the 4 largest US meat packers – Cargill, JBS, National Beef Packing Company and Tyson Foods – have been working together to restrict beef supplies and charging artificially high prices. We reported on this story in detail earlier this past week.
The suit charges the conspiracy has been going on since at least 2015. Since then, McD’s alleges, the packers have the packers have agreed among themselves to restrict the supply by cutting their pro-duction, thus creating shortages which have pushed beef prices to unprecedented heights – and kept them there in spite of slowing inflation and slight drops in the price of many food items.
On the other hand…
We also reported that a ‘perfect storm of closely intertwined economic and environmental factors have created a ‘perfect storm’ of circumstances that could be responsible for soaring beef prices.
That argument has been presented pretty conclusively by a number of economists and industry observers.
A lose-lose situation
This could be the biggest lose-lose situation in the history of the food supply chain in North America.
Either way, prices have been jacked up and are likely to remain high – just for very different reasons. And if not for one set of reasons, then because the other, unrelated set.
The whole animal protein industry stands to be seriously disrupted – maybe irreparably damaged.
That could men we will all have to get off our duffs – very soon – and pack up our former lives, so to speak, like the Okies of the Great Depression, and head off toward an uncertain future in the plant-based Promised Land. Before any of us, or the economy, or the agri-food sector are ready to meet the challenge.
The question remains…
Who’s right? McDonald’s or the economists? Other Fast Food players are backing McD’s conspiracy theory. Some have even tried, previously but unsuccessfully, to push similar claims in court. But many economists are solidly backing the ‘perfect storm’ theory. It’s a stand-off. One which will pro-bably be decided in the courts.
But gargantuan issues such as the food price mess are seldom conveniently clear-cut or explainable in terms of simple cause or effect. What if the real situation turns out involve a blend of the conspir-acy theory and the economists’ theory? And may be even other factors we haven’t even considered, yet?
I’m reminded of the ancient Greek legend of the Gordian Knot, which just got bigger and more tangled as well-meaning experts and adventurers tried to unravel it.
My questions to you:
Do you believe McDonald’s and the other burger pushers are right – that the meat packers have been fixing beef prices?
Or do you believe the economists are right about their ‘perfect storm’?
Either way, do you believe that the agri-food industry and food supply chain are in mortal danger?
Finally… Given God-like powers, what would you do to resolve the issue of unrelenting high food prices?
Muse on that…
~ Maggie J.