Cooks Venture promised to be a different kind of poultry company. It used the same old abusive and reckless business tactics, hurting farmers and workers.
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Contract chicken farmers say that they aren’t paid based on their efforts. A new USDA rule aims to make performance-based pay more fair.
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New report shows special interests spent half a billion lobbying on the latest farm bill and chicken growers wage-fixing suit survives class certification.
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A recap of some of our biggest stories of 2023 and a look ahead to antimonopoly action expected in 2024.
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USDA and DOJ collaborate to sue Koch Foods for restrictive contract termination fees. USDA also finalizes poultry contract transparency rule. Farmers say keep the foot on the gas.
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USDA’s proposed rule would require that chicken companies provide more information to their contract growers to better project earnings and spot unfairness.
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Troubles in the turkey industry predate the pandemic.
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While hundreds of millions for cheated customers is nothing to sneeze at, it is not clear if these recent settlements will discourage future collusion.
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Will out-of-state investors own a sizable portion of Costco’s chicken production? One investor from North Carolina has applied for permits to build at least 132 chicken houses across nine locations in four Nebraska counties, according to public documents reviewed by Food & Power. Read Claire Kelloway's latest story on how one private equity fund could own a quarter of the chicken houses for Costco’s project in Nebraska.
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Late last month, the Trump administration cleared the way for chicken plants to increase their processing line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175 birds per minute. The change deals a blow to workers and reverses the efforts of labor and animal welfare advocates, who fought to halt poultry line speed increases in 2014. It also indicates the administration will likely soon remove line speed limits in hog slaughter and lower workplace injury reporting requirements throughout all sectors of the economy.
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Tyson, the largest poultry company in the U.S., has failed at its second attempt to find a location for a new meatpacking facility in Kansas. Last week, an economic development group in Sedgwick County withdrew its bid for the $320 million plant. The decision came amidst an outpouring of public backlash, and follows Tyson’s squashed attempts earlier this year to build the same facility in Tonganoxie, Kansas.
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