Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Document Notes
Capitalism does not offer you the choices you think it does. You might have two dozen types of microwave popcorn or almond milks, but they’re mainly controlled by four firms each. Of of Capitalism’s greatest strengths has been to sell the illusion of choice to the masses, while encouraging monopolies in the background.
Highlights
id844749934
just four firms now control at least 97 percent of the $68 billion frozen potato market,
id844749913
Between July 2022 and July 2024, the price of frozen potato products increased by 47 percent across the board, according to court documents.
id844749850
around 40 percent of all potatoes grown in the United States are sold to frozen potato companies — seventeen billion pounds annually. These firms buy potatoes from growers, prepare and freeze them, package them, and send them off to restaurants, grocery stores, bars, and distributors as frozen fries or Tater Tots.
id844749855
Lamb Weston, the J. R. Simplot Company, Canada-based company McCain Foods, and Cavendish Farms
id844744908
Of more than fifty grocery items surveyed in a 2021 report by advocacy group Food and Water Watch and the Guardian, nearly 80 percent came from industries in which four firms or fewer firms controlled at least 40 percent of the market share.
id844747223
Four firms controlled nearly 80 percent of the almond milk market, for instance. Three companies controlled 83 percent of the canned tuna market, and four companies controlled more than 86 percent of the microwave popcorn market.
id844747360
Such consolidation goes “hand in hand” with concentration in bigger food markets like meat processing, as well as consolidation of grocery store chains, she said. In the same way, french fry price hikes may be enabled by the decline in independent french fry purveyors.
✏️ When your clients become bigger and bigger, consolidating, killing off indie’s and mom and pops… well your vendors and suppliers follow suit and serve the bigger appetite. 🔗 View Highlight
id844747471
For Saltzman and the clientele at his sports bar, however, the price hikes are a mounting strain. When he opened Ivy and Coney’s doors a decade ago, an order of fries was around $3, he said. That cost has now doubled — and his margins have only decreased. “I’m not making any more money off it,” he said.
✏️ This is where the indies and small operations get pushed out. 🔗 View Highlight
id844747519
“It’s a problem for potato growers, because they have so few places to sell to,” Howard said. With only four potential buyers, growers have less leverage — meaning that the profits from higher french fry prices aren’t passed down to the farmers actually growing the potatoes.
✏️ The suppliers of the raw materials (here potatoes) get screwed as well, having no choice but to sell to the limited and colluding buyers that want as much profit as possible. They get that profit by squeezing the farmer on one end and the clients on the other. 🔗 View Highlight
id844747695
None have defected and lowered prices in an attempt to fight for more market share. According to the lawsuits, that’s because they have conspired to keep the prices where they are.
id844747708
In the popular imagination, price-fixing agreements might be struck at a secret meeting of rival executives — the deal made in the classic “smoke-filled room.” But the case against Big Potato argues that the frozen potato companies have accomplished such a tacit agreement through other means: a third-party tech platform.
✏️ No need for clandestine meetings when you have technology to help you. 🔗 View Highlight
id844747792
information-sharing platforms, software used within industries to share business information between rival companies. Regulators argue that such tech platforms allow companies to tacitly fix prices by swapping detailed and often confidential information on their operating costs and pricing.
id844749629
Similar platforms in housing and hotels have caught regulators’ attention, most notably RealPage, software that helps landlords set rent prices. Such anticompetitive algorithms may be costing renters billions of dollars a year,
id844749660
For the frozen potato companies, the smoke-filled room is called PotatoTrac, an analytics service sold by a third-party company called Circana. The four major frozen potato companies all agree to feed data into PotatoTrac, which the service then distributes to the market, giving executives an in-depth look at supply, labor costs, and pricing.