[tompccs]

Indeed, it is surprising that you would be able to pull this stunt on such a huge buyer as McDonalds.

Here's an alternative theory that will disappoint the readers of Jacobian - potatoes are a commodity and commodity prices drive inflation. A bad crop, expensive fertiliser, a ground war in one of the largest potato-exporting countries in the world (Ukraine) - all these things would cause suppliers to increase prices in lockstep.

Inflation can be good cover for price collusion, sure, but the reason why it's such good cover is that its effects are almost indistinguishable without a smoking gun. Lets see what the FTC investigation brings up.

(Another note - inflation inflates profits as well as prices.)

[switch007]

> one of the largest potato-exporting countries in the world (Ukraine)

Are you sure about that?

"Other potatoes, fresh or chilled " 2019 [0]:

- 1st: France, 2,119,100,000 kg

- 57th: Ukraine, 5,612,450 kg

"Seed potatoes" 2019 [1]:

- 1st: Netherlands 953,793,000 kg (No 1)

- 48th: Ukraine, 72,377 kg

[0] https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/ALL/yea...

[1] https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/ALL/yea...

[poulsbohemian]

Just to augment what you are saying... all potatoes aren't created equally either... size, starches, variety, organic... there are places around North America where certain kinds of potatoes are grown that are completely unsuitable for french fries but might be fine for retail. Even among Russets, for example - you see smaller ones bagged up for retail, but larger ones are often sold loose as "bakers." And sometimes those same big beautiful Russets are undesirable for fries because they are inconsistent sizes, which can be problematic for processing.