Egg producers nationwide are being sued by the Justice Department for what the agency says is coordinated price manipulation.
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, alongside 17 state attorneys general, filed the civil lawsuit against Cal-Maine Foods, Hickman’s Egg Ranch, Centrum Valley Holdings, Versova Holdings and Versova Management Cooperative, alleging that egg prices dropped “significantly” from their peak after they learned of the department’s investigation into coordinated manipulation.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, the complaint alleges that between June 2022 and March 2025, the companies collaborated to artificially inflate the daily quotations of Urner Barry Publications, a market reporting company that provides benchmark quotations for the food industry, specializing in protein markets such as red meat, seafood, poultry and eggs.
U.S. egg prices have fallen from their record peaks, hovering around $2.50 for a dozen Grade A large eggs. This is a sharp drop from the historic high of over $6 reached in March 2025, driven by supply shocks from the avian flu.
The egg producers also acquire eggs on spot markets, and Urner Barry factors these bids when issuing daily price quotations — the baseline for most egg contracts nationwide.
The complaint alleges that the companies conspired to inflate Urner Barry’s price quotations.
If approved by the court, the Justice Department’s proposed settlements would prevent the companies from communicating with competitors regarding bidding strategies, including the prices, timing, number of bids, supply and demand that they may share with a benchmark publication, as well as discussions regarding transactions that are “not based on legitimate business needs.”
They would also be required to adopt antitrust compliance programs, monitor meetings of cooperatives and joint ventures, and report potential settlement violations.
“No product more quintessentially represents affordability than the price Americans pay for eggs,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement.
The attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin joined the Justice Department in the complaint and proposed settlements.
