Dive Brief:
- Tyson Foods, Cargill and other meat companies would be required to sell only one type of protein under a proposal to address runaway grocery prices led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
- The bill, which is cosponsored by 28 Democrats, would “break up” dominant meatpackers by forcing them to choose between selling just beef, poultry or pork. It also compels Brazil-based JBS to divest U.S. assets and lays out plans to review whether WH Group-backed Smithfield Foods should do the same.
- Meatpackers would additionally need to source cattle from more independent ranchers, with the bill placing limits on how much livestock a company can slaughter from a single large feedlot.
Dive Insight:
As grocery affordability becomes a flashpoint in a heated election year, Democrats are positioning the bill as a way to directly lower costs. Beef has become one of the most visible representations of inflation after prices increased by 15% in 2025 to a record high.
“Our bill rests on a simple idea,” Schumer said during a media event. “To lower costs, we need more competition. And to create more competition, we have to break the stranglehold of these monopolistic corporations.”
The meat industry was quick to blast the proposal. Industry association The Meat Institute argued the bill would “decimate” the sector and directly contribute to higher consumer prices by removing operational efficiencies that companies have spent years building. The group also said the bill also does nothing to address the severe U.S. cattle shortage it says is the real contributor to high beef costs.
“This proposal is absurd,” Julie Anna Potts, Meat Institute president and CEO, said in a statement. “If the Senator is trying to make meat and poultry more affordable for consumers, this is the wrong approach. It will have the opposite effect.”
Meatpackers have seen beef profits drop as ranchers experience the worst cattle shortage in 75 years. Tyson reported a $319 million hit to its beef business in the last quarter due to high cattle prices. The company announced it would close one of its largest beef processing plants in Nebraska as it struggles to absorb the losses.
Other meats, particularly chicken, have thrived as Americans turn to more affordable proteins. Without the ability to spread out the risk, the bill would push companies to abandon beef for more profitable businesses, causing prices to rise, the Meat Institute argued.
“None of this encourages America’s beef producers to invest in their business and raise more animals,” Potts said. “In Schumer’s radical new market structure, what incentive does anyone have to own and operate a beef facility, especially now when economists predict the herd will take a decade to fully rebuild?”
