by Katherine Pugh
The Justice Department and 17 U.S. states’ Attorneys General are suing several food companies for illegally coordinating the manipulation of egg prices.
Announced in a Justice Department press release on Tuesday, the complaint — filed in Iowa’s Northern District Court — alleges that the defendants conspired to artificially inflate the daily price quotations of Urner Barry Publications, a market reporting company.
Urner Barry’s publications impact prices that restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses pay for eggs across the country.
The defendants include Mississippi-headquartered Cal-Maine Foods Inc., Arizona-headquartered Hickman’s Egg Ranch Inc., Iowa-headquartered Versova Holdings LLC, Centrum Valley Holdings LLC and Versova Management Cooperative; all produce and sell eggs to grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses that ultimately sell or provide eggs to American consumers.
According to the complaint, the defendants conspired to inflate Urner Barry’s price quotations by agreeing to: submit a lot of bids, submit bids that were unlikely to result in executed trades, cause several defendants to bid to alert Urner Barry that market participants needed to buy eggs and deliver trades at premium prices.
The defendants, along with other egg producers, also bid to obtain eggs on spot markets, including the Egg Clearinghouse, an exchange that helps determine and establish the market value for eggs and egg products.
The coordination extended to regular communications among senior executives. For instance, in October 2022, a Cal-Maine executive texted Hickman’s CEO to coordinate “bidding up” efforts aimed at holding prices steady, after which the two companies’ bids accounted for over half of those submitted on the exchange that day, and Urner Barry kept its quotations unchanged.
Officials say that on other occasions, such as in December 2022, the executives exchanged emails and calls urging one another to “bid early and often” in diverse regions, submitting dozens of premium bids — often at prices unlikely to result in actual trades — while other market participants submitted far fewer. The complaint notes that these actions helped create the appearance of broad market demand, prompting Urner Barry to raise its daily price quotations across multiple regions.
Urner Barry keeps this bidding information in mind when it issues daily price quotations that influence wholesale egg prices — billions of eggs are sold annually with prices based on Urner Barry’s price quotations.
Egg price quotations dropped significantly from their peak after defendants learned of the Justice Department’s investigation, and were instructed to preserve documents in March 2025, the complaint states.
“No product more quintessentially represents affordability than the price Americans pay for eggs,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said. “These actions prove this Department’s continued commitment to protecting competition and providing real relief for everyday Americans’ pocketbooks.”
Prosecutors allege the scheme unfolded even as many of the defendants operated under a “net short” business model, producing fewer eggs than their customer contracts required and relying heavily on spot-market purchases to fulfill demand. By inflating Urner Barry’s benchmarks — which feed directly into countless retailer and restaurant contracts — the conspiracy raised costs for billions of eggs sold annually, contributing to elevated prices for American consumers during a period that included significant supply pressures from avian influenza.
The Attorneys General for U.S. states Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin joined the Justice Department in the complaint and suggested settlements.
The settlements, if approved by the court, will prevent the defendant companies from coordinating egg price manipulation in the future by restricting them from engaging in anticompetitive communications and agreements with competitors about bids, pricing, transactions, and benchmark reporting.
“These settlements resolve years of conduct that dragged on Americans’ finances and their everyday lives,” former Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed Assefi of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.
Under the proposed settlements, Cal-Maine Foods has agreed to pay $1.5 million and donate 30 million eggs, Versova entities will provide $800,000 and 20 million eggs, and Hickman’s Egg Ranch will contribute $1 million and 3.25 million eggs. The donated eggs are expected to support food banks and nonprofits. The agreements also require the companies to implement antitrust compliance programs, appoint monitors for oversight, and refrain from anticompetitive communications regarding bids, pricing, or benchmark reporting.
Both the proposed settlements and competitive impact statements will be published in the federal register, as required by the Tunney Act of 1974, which calls for federal courts to review, evaluate and approve proposed settlements in civil antitrust cases brought by the Justice Department.
Interested parties can submit written comments regarding the settlements for up to 60 days after the publication. When this period ends, Iowa’s Northern District Court may enter final judgments upon finding they are in the public interest.
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Katherine Pugh is a reporter for Just the News. Follow her on X for more coverage. Executive Editor of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network Christina Botteri contributed to this report.
