As families in Western New York and across the country grapple with continued increases in grocery prices, a new effort in Washington aims to reduce meat prices for consumers.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer was in Niagara Falls on Monday touting the Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act, which aims to reduce grocery prices through breaking up meatpacking monopolies to stop unfair pricing.
“Because of these monopolies, so few companies control our beef, our pork, our chicken and the price gets higher and higher,” said Schumer at the Niagara Sausage Company on Lockport Road.
The four meat companies being targeted are Tyson Foods, JBS, Cargill, and National Beef, which control a combined 85% of the beef market, 67% of the pork market, and 60% of the chicken market.
Among the actions this bill would take are:
• Making it unlawful for a major meatpacking conglomerate to control more than one major type of meat
• Imposes hard caps on the concentration of beef markets at the regional and national levels
• Direct the FTC to design and enforce divestiture plans
• Prohibits foreign leverage over the domestic meat market
• Tackling discriminatory pricing in retail and wholesale meat markets
• Authorizes the Small Business Administration to provide financial assistance to farmer co-ops and small businesses seeking to acquire any plants or facilities divested under this bill
• Makes failure to divest enforceable under the FTC.
One WalletHub study from this past October found Buffalo area residents spent the seventh most household income on groceries of any American city. Other data from the Urban Institute found that New York’s 26th Congressional District, which includes Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and the Tonawandas, has seen some of the fastest grocery price growth in the county over the past 10 years, paying $758.95 then to $1,149.02 now.
Schumer also noted that for every dollar spent on meat, the ranchers who raised the food get 30 cents.
“The cost of meat, spices, packing utilities, and transportation has increased significantly over the past few years,” said Niagara Sausage Company owner Mike Greenawalt. “As a small, local shop, we don’t have the buying power of large corporate chains. Every increase from suppliers forces difficult decisions. We’ve worked hard to absorb as much of these costs as we can, because we know our customers depend on us for quality products at honest prices.”
Robyn Krueger, president and CEO of Community Missions, said they have seen a nearly 200% increase over the past three years in the number of people coming to their food pantry because of food insecurity.
“It just continues to go up and up,” Krueger said. “It doesn’t appear at this point that there is any end in sight.”
Schumer said this bill is already seeing bipartisan support as people are getting fed up with high prices and the meatpacking lobby’s influence in Washington.
“People are getting so damn fed up that I think we can overcome their power,” Schumer said.