Claire Kelloway ’16 co-authors opinion essay in New York Times
Kelloway studied political science, international relations, and political economy at Carleton.
Claire Kelloway ’16 co-authored a guest opinion essay for the New York Times with Sandeep Vaheesan titled, “This Is Why Your Groceries Are So Expensive.”
Prepare for sticker shock as summer barbecue season heats up: The price of beef is sizzlingly high. Grilled sirloin will cost more than $14 a pound, on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up 20 percent since last year.
This month, President Trump considered, and then halted, a plan to reduce tariffs on beef from some nations, including Argentina, to bring prices down. But such moves would not be enough to fix the core problem: a highly concentrated sector that has controlled our meat supply for much of the past century. More than 45 percent of all U.S. cattle passed through just 11 meat processing plants in 2025, and the top four packers sold 80 to 85 percent of all domestic beef in 2024.
In March, Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, introduced a bill to break up dominant beef-packing corporations, which include JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill and National Beef. The Trump administration, which has otherwise been allergic to regulatory enforcement against big corporations, recently announced investigations into beef packers as well as egg processors, which raised prices sharply during the avian flu outbreak, for possible antitrust violations.
But those investigations will matter only if regulators follow up on their findings with aggressive legal actions. Mr. Schumer’s bill is the kind of structural solution, with potential bipartisan appeal, that has been in short supply.
The entire U.S. food system is remarkably consolidated, exploitative and fragile. Two companies sold half of all fresh bread in 2020; two others controlled an estimated two-thirds of all baby formula in 2022; and two companies produced about 60 percent of all carrots in 2023. Result? Food prices remain elevated after rising about 30 percent between 2019 and 2025, as corporations took advantage of pandemic supply chain disruptions to raise prices and, critically, profits.