Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hnboredhn 1056 days ago
I am not too in the weeds on this particular issue, but it seems not that crazy to me that "the biggest four companies" produce 55% of the US's chickens. Presumably that means there is much more than four who register in at above a couple percent nationally and possibly even at a local level different players. Its also for one market. While I eat a lot of chicken, I could substitute it for other foods or meats.

To be clear I think these companies would manipulate prices if they knew how and could get away with it, but having trouble seeing how "four companies control under 60 percent of one food's market" is that alarming. That seems like more competition than at any point in human history.
2 comments
mandmandam 1056 days ago
> That seems like more competition than at any point in human history.

I think your intuition is very wrong on this one. And since there are clear signs of price fixing which you haven't addressed, it's pretty irrelevant.

link
HDThoreaun 1056 days ago
There really aren't clear signs of price fixing. At least not in this piece.
link
mandmandam 1056 days ago
That's fair. Price fixing is a specific thing, while I was more referring to facts like:

>BigAg’s consolidated power throttles the price discovery process.

and

> Over time the share of feedlot-to-meatpacker sales done via contract has increased to 72%, so BigAg sets the price outright with no price discovery process at all.

I'm tired and can't even think what to call this except 'undue influence', which is too vague. Though that said, I'd still be shocked if there wasn't price fixing going on, given the state of things.

While I'm here, OP seems to miss that this is 4 players controlling "roughly 85% of the total hog, cattle, and poultry processing market", focusing on chicken where the number is lowest. It's really, really bad; and not something to dismiss based on wild historical speculation.

link
ceejayoz 1056 days ago
> That seems like more competition than at any point in human history.

What, were the Vikings running a global monopoly on grain or something?

link
hnboredhn 1056 days ago
If you were a random person in a town 1600 - how many people do you think you could buy meat form? I honestly dont know. I guess if everyone had subsistence farms with some chickens it in theory could be a lot, but not sure if it would be over 10 or not.

Its not like they had efficient shipping or storage back then.

link