Pilgrim’s Pride CEO among 4 indicted for chicken price fixing
Posted/updated on: June 3, 2020 at 3:30 pm
WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. (AP) – The CEO of Pilgrim’s Pride is one of four current and former chicken company executives who have been indicted on charges of price-fixing. The Justice Department says a federal grand jury in Colorado found that executives from Colorado-based Pilgrim’s Pride and Georgia-based Claxton Poultry conspired to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chickens from at least 2012 to 2017. Among those charged is Pilgrim’s Pride CEO Jayson Penn. They are the first executives to be charged in a long-running investigation of price-fixing in the chicken industry. The executives could face 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
On September 17, 2009, JBS USA Holdings, Inc. announced the purchase of 64% of the shares of Pilgrim’s Pride. Currently JBS USA Holdings, Inc. owns 78.5% of the company. As a result, Pilgrim’s Pride closed its corporate offices in Texas and Georgia and moved its headquarters to Greeley, Colorado. That move caused the former headquarters in Pittsburg and a location in Mt. Pleasant, to cut employment by a 160 people.
