Pilgrim’s Pride will pay $100 million to settle a lawsuit alleging it conspired to underpay agriculture workers. It represents the largest settlement amount in the history of the protein industry, according to a court document filed last week with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
The poultry processor, a subsidiary of JBS, was accused by a group of farm worker plaintiffs of an “overarching conspiracy to suppress compensation paid to broiler farmers nationwide,” in collaboration with rival companies, according to the settlement.
The company did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.
“Growers were deprived of vigorous competition for their Broiler-Grow Out Services, causing the pay of all Growers for each pound of Broiler chicken produced to be artificially suppressed,” the court said in the settlement.
In the document, the court acknowledged the settlement agreement came after more than seven years of “hard-fought litigation,” which included over 1.7 million court documents being reviewed.
Several other chicken companies previously reached settlements in the same case: Tyson Foods, for $21 million; Sanderson Farms, for $17.75 million; Koch Foods, for $15.5 million; and Perdue Farms, for $14.75 million. The settlement amount from all of the alleged companies totaled $169 million.
Pilgrim’s Pride did not respond to a request for comment at press time.
Price-fixing and related antitrust cases have roiled the meat industry in recent years, leading to expensive payouts from the largest producers. In April 2023, Pilgrim’s Pride and rival Perdue, among other companies, paid $35 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging a price-fixing conspiracy in Washington state.
But producers have prevailed in some instances. Last fall, an Illinois jury ruled that Sanderson Farms did not participate in an industry-wide scheme to inflate chicken prices.