“Around 40 percent of all potatoes grown in the United States are sold to frozen potato companies — 17 billion pounds annually,” the lawsuit said. Four firms then buy the potatoes, prepare and freeze them before packaging them.

While there were over a dozen companies 20 years ago, that number has slowly shrunk to just four. They’re named: Lamb Weston, Canada-based company McCain Foods, the J.R. Simplot Company, and Cavendish Farms. The first two control about 70% of the market, while J.R. Simplot manages about 20%, the report says.

They’ve all told restaurants and bars that they’ll increase prices by $0.12 per pound in April.

“It was just the most obvious example of collusion I’ve seen in a long time,” said Washington, D.C., bar owner Josh Saltzman. “All of them were raising their prices by virtually the exact same amount within a week of each other.”

    • pelespiritOPM
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      5 days ago

      That’s a fair point, but I honestly don’t have the bandwidth. I have certain sources that I go through to post and then rarely go beyond those. I’m glad you posted the original. I suggest that if it bugs you, to help the OP out and post the original like you did here.

  • lurch (he/him)
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    4 days ago

    before that it was eggs, wasn’t it? what will be the next thing? flour?

    • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      “Around 40 percent of all potatoes grown in the United States are sold to frozen potato companies — 17 billion pounds annually,” the lawsuit said. Four firms then buy the potatoes, prepare and freeze them before packaging them.

      While there were over a dozen companies 20 years ago, that number has slowly shrunk to just four. They’re named: Lamb Weston, Canada-based company McCain Foods, the J.R. Simplot Company, and Cavendish Farms. The first two control about 70% of the market, while J.R. Simplot manages about 20%, the report says.

      They’ve all told restaurants and bars that they’ll increase prices by $0.12 per pound in April.

      “It was just the most obvious example of collusion I’ve seen in a long time,” said Washington, D.C., bar owner Josh Saltzman. “All of them were raising their prices by virtually the exact same amount within a week of each other.”