As Americans gather for Memorial Day weekend, they may notice their grocery bill is a little higher than this time last year.
According to the Center for American Progress, ground beef prices are up nearly 19% compared to last year.
That is part of what’s driving a new bill pushed Monday around upstate New York by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. He believes the Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act would help break up meat monopolies and help lower costs for people.
Schumer says four companies – Tyson Foods, JBS, Cargill and National Beef – control 85% of the beef market, 67% of the pork market and 60% of the chicken market, which leads to unfair prices for folks at the store.
“When you don’t have good, old-fashoned American competition, the prices go up,” Schumer said.
The bill would make it so meatpackers would have to choose a single product like beef, chicken or pork. It also aims to assist farmers’ cooperatives and small businesses looking acquire, operate or expand meatpacking facilities so more competition can enter the market and help consumers and smaller operations.
Andrew Coppin, co-founder of RanchBot, told Spectrum News 1 earlier this year that beef supplies in the U.S. have been hit by ongoing droughts across North America, while demand for meat has increased as beef is now heavily promoted as a healthy protein.
There are about 1.4 million head of cattle across New York state, including 631,199 milk cows 102,671 beef cows, according to the New York Beef Council.