Proposed DOJ settlement targets Agri Stats’ data practices

A proposed federal court settlement involving Agri Stats, one of the meat industry’s most influential benchmarking and analytics firms, could reshape how meat companies access and use competitive data in the future. Filed May 7 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, the proposed final judgment stems from a 2023 antitrust lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and several states against Agri Stats Inc. The government alleged the company’s data-sharing practices enabled processors to exchange sensitive market intelligence in ways that may have reduced competition. While Agri Stats did not admit wrongdoing, the company agreed to operational changes under a proposed 10-year consent decree designed to increase transparency and limit the sharing of competitively sensitive information. Agri Stats, headquartered in Indiana, provides benchmarking reports widely used throughout the poultry, pork, and turkey sectors. The reports compile non-public operational and financial information submitted by processors, allowing companies to compare performance metrics across areas such as feed efficiency, mortality, processing yields, and profitability. For decades, these reports have served as an industry standard for operational benchmarking. Critics, however, argued the data-sharing system allowed companies to monitor competitors too closely. One of the most significant provisions in the settlement would prohibit Agri Stats from continuing its sales reporting business. Under the agreement, Agri Stats must stop offering “Sales Report Books” and can no longer report sales pricing data from meat processors, even in anonymized form, except in limited circumstances tied to operational profit analysis. The proposed judgment would also ban several reporting practices that regulators viewed as problematic, including revealing participant identities, publishing processor rankings and sharing data “flags” that showed how many companies contributed to a particular metric. Agri Stats also would be prohibited from sharing individual company performance data outside narrow exceptions outlined in the agreement. The settlement establishes new aggregation standards as well. For many reports, data must represent at least three processors, and no single company can account for more than 70 percent of the underlying information. The agreement also imposes stricter time delays on data reporting. Most information included in Agri Stats reports would need to be at least 45 days old on average, while certain production-related data must be at least 90 days old before publication. Another major component of the settlement would require Agri Stats to make its reports and manuals available for purchase by any person or company in the United States, not just meat processors. The decree states Agri Stats cannot discourage non-processors from purchasing reports through restrictive contract terms or discriminatory pricing. That change could potentially expand access to researchers, retailers, food manufacturers, investors and other market participants who historically had limited visibility into the benchmarking system. Not all Agri Stats reporting would disappear under the settlement. The proposed judgment specifically allows continued publication of certain feed formulation, nutrition and operational performance reports, provided they comply with the new confidentiality requirements. Attached exhibits identify numerous poultry and swine feed-related reports that could continue, including nutrient profiles, feeding schedules, medication usage reports and feed-efficiency benchmarking tied to animal growth and performance. The settlement also permits Agri Stats subsidiary Express Markets Inc. to continue publishing nationwide broiler chicken price reports under tighter oversight and reporting restrictions. If approved, the agreement would place Agri Stats under extensive federal oversight. A court-appointed monitor would oversee compliance for up to seven years, with authority to inspect records, review reporting practices and investigate potential violations. Agri Stats also would be required to implement a formal antitrust compliance program that includes annual employee training, whistleblower protections and mandatory disclosure of suspected violations to federal and state regulators. The proposed final judgment would remain in effect for 10 years unless terminated earlier by the government.