The Justice Department has widened its antitrust inquiry into the nation’s largest meatpackers, focusing on rising retail beef prices and possible anticompetitive conduct.
In July, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward sent letters to eight of the country’s top grocery retailers: Costco, Publix, Aldi, Amazon, Kroger, Walmart, Ahold Delhaize USA and Albertsons Companies.
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The July 14, 2026 letters instructed the companies to preserve documents and other records relevant to the investigation.The department asked each retailer to provide information on:
its pricing strategy and profit margins on beef products, and how those have changed from 2020 through 2026;
its costs for beef products over the same period;
its wholesale arrangements for purchasing beef from meatpackers; and
its analysis of recent trends in both retail and wholesale beef markets.
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The letters also requested that company personnel be made available to brief DOJ investigators by July 24, 2026.
View all 8 letters below:
