Wyoming beef rancher Casey Parker has never been shy about her opinions on the state of America’s meatpacking industry. For years, she’s watched the price of retail beef soar while the money ranchers receive has stubbornly refused to budge. "Those four companies control 85% of America’s beef supply. The ranchers’ prices have stayed flat for decades, when retail beef is at record highs. The packers are making record profits during the same period, and this is not a free market. It’s a monopoly," Parker told Elizabeth Vargas Reports on NewsNation, referring to Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef—the so-called "Big Four."
Her frustration is hardly unique. Across the United States, beef prices have hit historic highs in 2025. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a pound of ground chuck cost retail consumers about $6.33 in September, up 13.5% from a year earlier. The causes are many: a yearslong drought has scorched pasture lands, feed costs have spiked, and ranchers have been forced to shrink the nation’s cattle herd to its smallest size in nearly 75 years. Despite these challenges, consumer demand for beef has remained strong, with Americans continuing to buy even as prices climb.
Last week, President Donald Trump responded to mounting public pressure by announcing that his administration would direct the Department of Justice to investigate the major meatpacking companies for alleged price manipulation and collusion. "Meatpackers are driving up beef prices," Trump declared, asking the Justice Department to launch a probe into the industry’s practices. For ranchers like Parker, it was a long-awaited sign that the federal government might finally take their complaints seriously.
But the president’s approach hasn’t been without controversy. In an effort to lower domestic beef prices, Trump has also exempted Argentinian beef from tariffs—a move that’s raised eyebrows among U.S. producers worried about foreign competition. Parker, for her part, is willing to give the strategy a chance. "That’s just my opinion on it," she said, suggesting the tariff exemption could be a way to put additional pressure on American meatpackers to play fair.
The investigation has resonated far beyond the ranches of Wyoming. As Reuters and NewsNation reported, ranchers across the country have applauded the administration’s willingness to challenge the meatpacking giants. At the same time, the move has drawn skepticism from economists and industry analysts, who note that proving price-fixing requires more than just parallel pricing or high profits—it demands clear evidence of collusion.
North of the border, the story has taken on a different flavor. In a commentary published this week, Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, observed that Canadian consumers are facing even steeper increases at the meat counter. In Canada, average beef prices have risen between 14% and 16% in 2025, with some premium cuts up more than 30% since January. The average price for ground beef reached $14.85 per kilogram (about $6.72 per pound) in September, slightly higher than in the U.S. even after accounting for exchange rates.
Charlebois points out that Canada’s beef industry is even more concentrated than America’s, dominated by just two foreign-owned companies: Cargill and JBS. Their massive plants in Alberta and Ontario process most of the nation’s cattle. Yet, unlike Washington, Ottawa has shown little appetite for launching a similar investigation. The reasons, Charlebois argues, are as much cultural and political as they are legal.
Under Canadian law, proving price-fixing requires explicit communication between companies—emails, phone calls, or direct coordination—not simply a pattern of rising prices. High prices alone, no matter how painful for consumers, are not inherently illegal. And there are practical considerations, too: scrutinizing or shutting down operations at the country’s largest beef processors would risk massive job losses, export delays, and political fallout, particularly in Alberta and Ontario. In a fragile minority Parliament, few Canadian ministers are eager to ignite such a firestorm.
There’s also the issue of data. Canada lacks the kind of centralized agri-food data strategy that the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides. Without detailed, transparent data on carcass weights, kill numbers, and price spreads, Canadian regulators are effectively "investigating in the dark," as Charlebois puts it. Calls for stronger federal-provincial coordination and better market transparency have so far yielded little progress.
For many Canadians, the optics of a U.S. president "taking on the packers" makes it look as though their own government is asleep at the switch. The Competition Bureau’s limited scope and chronic underfunding only feed public skepticism. But Charlebois cautions against romanticizing Trump’s move. "His directive may play well in rural states, but investigations don’t automatically lower grocery bills. The underlying drivers—tight cattle supply, drought, high feed costs, and global demand—won’t vanish with subpoenas," he wrote.
Indeed, the fundamental issues plaguing both the U.S. and Canadian beef markets go beyond the question of corporate collusion. Years of drought have decimated herds, while the costs of feed, transportation, and labor have soared. Global demand for beef remains high, putting further pressure on supply. As Charlebois notes, "What would help both countries are policies that make domestic processing more efficient and less vulnerable to shocks." He argues that Canada doesn’t need political theatre, but rather better regulatory foresight, data transparency, and a serious look at how carbon pricing, labor shortages, and infrastructure costs affect competitiveness.
For ranchers like Parker, the hope is that the Justice Department’s investigation will at least shine a light on the opaque world of meatpacking—and perhaps lead to a fairer marketplace. Whether that hope is justified remains to be seen. Economists warn that even if wrongdoing is uncovered, breaking up or regulating the Big Four meatpackers would be a complex and politically fraught endeavor, with no guarantee of lower prices for consumers or higher profits for ranchers.
Meanwhile, American consumers continue to pay more for their steaks and burgers, and Canadian shoppers face even higher prices. The debate over how to fix the beef market—whether through investigations, regulatory reform, or greater market transparency—shows no sign of cooling off. For now, both sides of the border are left to grapple with the consequences of a system where a handful of companies wield enormous power over what ends up on dinner plates across North America.
As the Justice Department’s probe gets underway and policymakers in both countries search for answers, ranchers, consumers, and industry leaders alike are watching closely. The stakes are high, and the outcome could reshape the future of beef production and pricing for years to come.
