A federal grand jury indicted former chief executive William Lovette of Pilgrim’s Pride, one of the largest U.S. poultry processors, and five other industry executives on charges of conspiring to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chicken products, announced the Justice Department on Wednesday. The grand jury in Denver previously indicted Jayson Penn, who succeeded Lovette as Pilgrim’s chief executive in March 2019.
The three-count superseding indictment also charged Jimmie Little, identified as “a sales director of a chicken supplier headquartered in Colorado,” with one count of making false statements and one count of obstructing justice. Owned mostly by JBS SA of Brazil, Pilgrim’s is based in Greeley, Colorado. Little’s LinkedIn page says he has been a sales executive at Pilgrim’s since April 2000 and works out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. A JBS spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Roughly 40 percent of U.S. meat consumption is broiler chicken, according to USDA data. Beef makes up 30 percent, pork 23 percent, and turkey 6 percent of the meat supply. Consumers spend tens of billions of dollars annually on meat.
“The investigation remains ongoing,” said the Justice Department, which invited “anyone with information on price fixing, bid rigging, or other anticompetitive conduct related to the broiler chicken industry” to contact the citizen complaint center at its Antitrust Division. The alleged conspiracy operated for at least seven years, starting in 2012 and continuing to early 2019 at a minimum, said the government.
“Executives that choose collusion over competition will be held to account for schemes that cheat consumers and corrupt out competitive markets,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim.
Two large food distributors, Sysco and U.S. Foods, filed separate lawsuits in early 2018 alleging that chicken processors, including Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, Koch Meat Co., Sanderson Farms, and Perdue Foods, colluded to raise chicken prices. FERN reported in June 2019 that the government had intervened in those lawsuits, in a signal that it was investigating sales practices, too.
Four months ago, the grand jury indicted Pilgrim’s chief executive Penn and former Pilgrim’s vice president Roger Austin, along with two executives from Claxton Poultry Farms, president Mikell Fries and a vice president, Scott Brady, on charges of conspiracy to fix prices. Those charges were carried forward in the superseding indictment on Wednesday. Pilgrim’s named Fabio Sandri as its chief executive in late September and said Penn had left the company.
With the new charges, four current or former Pilgrim’s executives are among the 10 men indicted. Also indicted on Wednesday were Tim Mulrenin, a sales executive at Perdue Farms who previously worked for Tyson Foods, and William Kantola, Gary Roberts, and Rickie Blake, each described as an executive at a chicken supplier.
Kantola worked at a company headquartered in Illinois, said the Justice Department. Roberts was an employee of a company headquartered in North Carolina and “a manager and director” at a company based in Arkansas. Blake was “a director and manager” of a company with headquarters in Arkansas.
Tyson Foods, based in Springdale, Arkansas, said in June it was cooperating with the Justice Department as part of an application for corporate leniency, which would shield the company from criminal charges.