February 5, 2026
Consumer groups pursuing price-fixing allegations against the nation’s leading frozen potato product producers and certain others have urged an Illinois federal judge to let their claims proceed, arguing they’ve plausibly outlined a “classic antitrust story” that should be allowed to enter the evidence-gathering stage.
The plaintiff groups argued Wednesday that they’ve alleged more than enough circumstantial evidence for U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings to infer that the companies commanding 98% of the nation’s frozen potato product market illegally raised their prices during economic hard times, kept them high once those struggles eased and shared sensitive information to help facilitate their scheme.
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Direct purchasers, commercial indirect purchasers, and indirect purchasing consumers claim in the consolidated litigation that prices for frozen french fries, hash browns tater tots and other potato products had remained relatively stable for decades until Lamb Weston, McCain Foods, J.R. Simplot Co. and Cavendish Farms began working together to inflate them.
They say the processors almost simultaneously instituted a series of “unprecedented price hikes” between January 2021 and the spring of 2023 that they initially blamed on rising input costs but maintained even after those costs fell. The result was a 62% price increase between January 2022 and December 2024, and record profits they had every intention to keep flowing, the consumers claim.
Sharing competitively sensitive pricing information both directly and through Circana’s PotatoTrack service was a “central” component of their scheme, as it allows them to monitor one another and ensure their pricing coordination in nearly real time, the consumers allege. Lamb Weston and the other three processor defendants are the only companies that contribute data to and receive reports from PotatoTrack, they told Judge Cummings.
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The indirect purchasing consumers are represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Hagens Berman Sobol & Shapiro LLP.
Read Consumers Fight To Keep Frozen Potato Antitrust Suit Alive.