A former grocery executive told a progressive media outlet in a video released on Augus 20 that “people fucking need to go to jail” over a long-running scheme in which dominant US meat industry players have used information provided by a little-known data analytics company to increase prices and pad their bottom lines.

“This is probably one of the top five food scandals of the 21st century and we can’t underplay it,” said Errol Schweizer, the former vice president of Whole Foods’ grocery division. “People need to go to jail for this shit.”

Schweizer’s comments come at the start of a nine-minute video produced by More Perfect Union, which tells the story of how Indiana-based Agri Stats, the seemingly bland data firm, “built a network used by the nation’s largest meat companies,” including Tyson Foods, Hormel and Cargill.

“Inside that network, America’s meat barons share secret data,” says More Perfect Union’s Eric Gardner, the video’s narrator.

“It’s alleged that Agri Stats organises and then launders that information across the industry. Companies weaponise it, restricting output, manipulating the market, ultimately raising your prices.”

Last September, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a civil antitrust suit against Agri Stats for allegedly “organising and managing anticompetitive information exchanges among broiler chicken, pork, and turkey processors.”

“The complaint alleges that Agri Stats violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by collecting, integrating, and distributing competitively sensitive information related to price, cost and output among competing meat processors,” the DOJ said. “This conduct harms customers, including grocery stores and American families.”

Less than two months later, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison led a bipartisan coalition of states in joining the Justice Department’s lawsuit, which Agri Stats tried unsuccessfully to dismiss earlier this year.

Ellison told More Perfect Union that, while an update to US antitrust laws is long overdue, “the Sherman Act, passed in 1890, is enough to stop Agri Stats from this illegal information-sharing that it’s doing.”

“I want to get to trial on this fast,” said Ellison. “I believe we’ve got a great case, and I believe that what we’re fighting for is a fair economy so that all Americans can aspire to prosperity.”

More Perfect Union released its video days after Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris proposed a first-of-its-kind federal ban on price gouging in the food and grocery sectors and called for new rules to “make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive profits.”

The meat industry was among the corporate forces that pushed back on Harris’ proposed price gouging ban. Julie Anna Potts, president and CEO of the Meat Institute – a lobbying group for the meatpacking industry – accused the Harris campaign of “unfairly” targeting the meat and poultry industry.

While Potts said that “avian influenza, a shortage of beef cattle and high input prices like energy and labour are all factors that determine prices at the meat case,” Tyson, Cargill and National Beef are each facing lawsuits accusing them of illegally colluding to fix prices.

• The Defender report