The U-S Justice Department has proposed a settlement with the nation’s largest egg producers who allegedly conspired to fix prices between June of 2022 and March 2025. The settlement involves Versova Management Cooperative, which manages egg farms in Iowa, Cal-Maine Foods of Delaware, and Hickman’s eggs in Arizona. The companies will donate 50 million eggs to food banks and non-profits and pay $3.3 million. The Missouri based Farm Action Group pushed for the investigation, and co-founder Joe Maxwell says the settlement is not enough. He says the fine Cal-Maine Foods will pay is small compared to the one-point-two BILLION dollar profit they made.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird praised the settlement and says Iowa will get about $90,000. Versova oversees Centrum Valley Farms and Trillium Farms in Iowa. Maxwell says the settlement money will go to pay back to the government but not to the people.
Maxwell says eggs are a staple that almost everyone uses.
He says the companies claimed the bird flu pushed up the cost so they could get more profits.
He wants to see more action taken against these companies.
Maxwell says egg production has the same problem as pork, beef and others, as a small handful of companies control things.
