The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division on Tuesday said it had expanded its investigation into beef affordability to include eight of the largest grocery retailers in the United States.
The expansion comes after the DOJ launched an antitrust probe in May into the “Big Four” meatpackers — JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods and National Beef — which the department said control more than 85% of the US beef processing market.
Tuesday’s announcement expands the federal government’s scrutiny to the retail level of the food supply chain.
The DOJ said the retailers under investigation are Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Albertsons, Aldi, Ahold Delhaize, Costco and Amazon.
Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. sent letters to the eight companies regarding “recent increases in the retail price for beef,” according to the Justice Department.
“Beef prices are a critical concern to Americans, and a priority for this Justice Department,” the DOJ wrote on X.
FOX Business has reached out to the Justice Department for additional information and copies of the letters.
After announcing its investigation into potential antitrust violations in US cattle and beef markets in May, the Justice Department said it was reviewing more than 3 million documents and interviewing industry participants.
Federal officials have been examining whether concentration in the meatpacking industry has contributed to high beef prices.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference at the time that whistleblowers could receive substantial rewards for providing information that leads to successful enforcement actions.
“If the information you provide helps us secure a criminal penalty in excess of $1 million, you can be entitled to recover and receive 15% to 30% of the money that we recover,” Blanche said, describing the DOJ’s whistleblower rewards program.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins also tied the probe to broader concerns about food security and shrinking domestic cattle supplies, saying the US had about 86.2 million head of cattle and calves as of Jan. 1 — “the lowest since the 1950s.”
Last week, President Donald Trump said he would authorize the drafting of legal documents aimed at giving farmers and ranchers “the right to process their own food,” casting the move as an effort to break what he called a “nasty monopoly” in the meat industry.
The move was intended to give ranchers another way around the powerful meatpacking companies that stand between their cattle and grocery-store shelves, following backlash in farm country over Trump’s decision to allow more foreign beef imports.
Trump’s announcement came after cattle producers and some Republicans pushed back on his plan to temporarily allow tariff-free imports of up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef, a move intended to ease pressure on consumers facing high prices at the meat counter.
FOX Business has also reached out to Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Albertsons, Aldi, Ahold Delhaize, Costco and Amazon for comment.