Trump Wants Cheaper Groceries. That May Not Mean a Healthier Food System.

President Donald Trump’s recent executive order directing the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate possible price fixing across US food supply chains was framed as a response to one of voters’ most persistent concerns: grocery costs. The order establishes task forces to examine anticompetitive behavior across sectors, including meat processing, seeds, fertilizer, farm equipment, and food distribution, with a particular focus on companies that are foreign-owned or foreign-controlled. According to the White House, the goal is to protect “the stability and affordability of America’s food supply.”

Food prices have climbed sharply since the pandemic. Experts estimate that US households now spend roughly 30 percent more per month on groceries than they did in 2019, intensifying pressure on policymakers to act. But the investigation arrives at a moment when many researchers argue the problem is not simply inflation—it’s structural consolidation across the food system.

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How consolidation shapes what ends up on grocery shelves

The executive order targets multiple upstream sectors that economists and antitrust experts have flagged for years as highly concentrated. Just four companies control the vast majority of US beef processing, giving them outsized power over pricing, supply, and access throughout the system. “Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef—control 80 to 85 percent of the US beef market,” reports Farm Action. “Their power doesn’t stop at beef. These companies also dominate poultry and pork, shaping prices, production, and even which brands appear on grocery store shelves.”

That concentration doesn’t just affect meat prices. It influences which products get processed, distributed, and stocked nationally. When a small number of firms dominate processing facilities and distribution networks, smaller and mid-sized food companies (including plant-based brands) often face higher costs, limited shelf access, and fewer negotiating options.

This helps explain why plant-based foods, despite strong consumer interest, still struggle with price parity. According to the Good Food Institute, US retail sales of plant-based foods reached $8.1 billion in 2023, but price remains one of the biggest barriers preventing wider adoption, particularly for plant-based meat alternatives.

If antitrust enforcement meaningfully reduces exclusionary contracts or coordinated pricing across processing and distribution, it could lower structural barriers that currently keep plant-based foods more expensive and less accessible than their animal-based counterparts.

Why cheaper meat is not necessarily a consumer win

Lower meat prices may sound like relief for shoppers, but from a public health and environmental perspective, they raise red flags. The World Health Organization classifies processed meat as carcinogenic and red meat as probably carcinogenic, citing strong evidence linking high consumption to colorectal cancer. Large population studies have also associated higher red and processed meat intake with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.

From a climate standpoint, livestock production is one of the most resource-intensive parts of the global food system. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that animal agriculture accounts for approximately 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with beef contributing the largest share.

A landmark peer-reviewed study published in Science found that animal-based foods—particularly beef—generate far higher emissions and require significantly more land and water than plant-based alternatives. The researchers concluded that shifting diets away from meat and dairy represents one of the most powerful tools available to reduce environmental harm. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has echoed this conclusion, noting that plant-forward dietary shifts in high-income countries are necessary to meet climate mitigation goals.

If meat prices fall substantially, then it’s likely consumption will rise—reinforcing dietary patterns that public health experts and climate scientists increasingly argue are unsustainable.

The missed opportunity for plant-based access

Critically, the food supply chain investigation creates a choice point. If enforcement focuses narrowly on restoring lower meat prices, it risks entrenching a system already associated with environmental damage, public health costs, and inequitable community impacts. Research has documented how industrial animal agriculture disproportionately burdens rural and low-income communities through air and water pollution.

But if antitrust scrutiny succeeds in loosening consolidation across inputs, processing, and distribution, it could also help rebalance the playing field for plant-based foods. Lower input costs for crops such as soy, peas, lentils, and oats—combined with more competitive access to processing and retail—could make plant-forward eating more affordable for a broader segment of consumers.

For decades, animal agriculture has benefited from structural advantages that extend far beyond consumer preference—preferential access to processing infrastructure, entrenched distribution relationships, and policy frameworks that normalize meat as the default center of the plate. Healthier, more climate-friendly foods have often been forced to compete in a system not designed for them, absorbing higher costs and narrower margins along the way.

Antitrust enforcement will not, on its own, realign the food system. But it can remove some of the barriers that keep healthier, lower-impact foods artificially expensive or scarce. And if regulators treat this moment as an opportunity to expand competition rather than preserve incumbency, the outcome could be a whole lot more meaningful than cheap meat.