The Department of Justice and attorneys general from 17 states on June 30 filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Cal-Maine Foods, Hickman’s Egg Ranch and Versova entities, accusing the nation’s largest egg producers of unlawfully coordinating the manipulation of egg benchmark prices.
DOJ simultaneously filed proposed consent decrees with some defendants, suggesting certain companies are cooperating with the government. The suit alleges the companies inflated egg prices nationwide through coordinated manipulation of pricing benchmarks used across the industry.
Egg prices became a proxy issue for kitchen-table inflation in 2025 and 2026, drawing widespread public frustration and congressional scrutiny. The antitrust suit provides a legal explanation for the price spikes that consumers experienced at grocery stores.
Cal-Maine Foods is the largest shell egg producer in the United States. The company and co-defendants are accused of using benchmark pricing mechanisms to coordinate production and pricing decisions that artificially inflated consumer costs.
The case builds on DOJ’s broader enforcement posture against algorithmic and benchmark-based pricing coordination across industries. The Antitrust Division has pursued similar cases in meat processing, real estate and other sectors where dominant producers share pricing information.
The 17 participating state attorneys general represent a broad geographic cross-section, reflecting the nationwide impact of egg prices on household budgets. The proposed consent decrees would impose behavioral restrictions on cooperating defendants.
Consumers paid record-high prices for eggs during multiple periods in 2025 and 2026, with a dozen eggs exceeding $5 or more in many markets. Producers attributed the increases to avian influenza outbreaks, but the DOJ suit alleges coordinated pricing played a significant role.