More Than 400,000 Settlement Eggs Reach Wisconsin Food Banks: Three Egg Producers Accused of Colluding to Raise Prices, State to Receive About 2 Million Eggs
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul announced on November 12 that more than 400,000 eggs had been delivered this week to food banks and community organizations across Wisconsin, the first shipment of the roughly 2 million eggs the state is to receive under a settlement in an egg price-fixing case. The first eggs arrived on November 10, 42 pallets delivered to Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin locations in Appleton and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with further shipments planned for organizations across the state in the coming weeks.
The eggs come from a multistate settlement announced on June 30: the U.S. Department of Justice and the attorneys general of 17 states, including Wisconsin, accused three major egg producers, Cal-Maine Foods, Versova, which manages Centrum Valley Farms, and Hickman's Egg Ranch, of secretly coordinating between June 2022 and March 2025 to influence the daily egg price quotations published by Urner Barry and artificially raise egg prices. Under the settlement, the three companies will pay a combined $3.3 million and donate 53 million eggs to food banks and nonprofit organizations nationwide, provided at the companies' expense and required to meet all food safety and regulatory standards.
Kaul said in the announcement that Wisconsinites should not have to pay higher grocery bills because of collusion on prices. The settlement also requires the companies to stop the alleged coordination, adopt antitrust compliance programs and designate internal antitrust compliance officers; none of the companies admitted wrongdoing under the settlements. Egg prices soared to record highs in 2025, and the settlement marks a resolution of the price-manipulation allegations.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice said the remaining eggs designated for Wisconsin, about 2 million in total, will be delivered in batches over the coming weeks to food banks and community organizations throughout the state.
(Source: Wisconsin Department of Justice)
Source: Wisconsin Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：一盒鸡蛋（资料图）。Krzysztof Golik 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0 授权，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: A carton of eggs (file photo). Photo by Krzysztof Golik, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
