Houston Chronicle by Jeremy Blackman April 23, 2020
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing America's largest egg producer, accusing it of illegally inflating prices during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a lawsuit announced Thursday, the attorney general said Cal-Maine Foods had driven up prices on generic eggs by 300 percent, despite not having been hindered by the outbreak. Cal-Maine is a vertically integrated company, meaning it controls everything from the chicken to the store shelf.
The price of Cal-Maine's eggs increased from about $1 per dozen to as high as $3.44, according to the lawsuit. That might seem a relatively small increase on its own, but for a company that controls nearly 20 percent of egg sales nationwide, it created a huge profit potential, the lawsuit says.
The state is seeking over $100,000 in damages.
Cal-Maine strongly disputed the allegations, and said they base their pricing off of independent market quotes.
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Price-gouging-eggs-Texas-AG-sues-Cal-Maine-15222218.php
