Are Delaware chicken producers selling birds at too high a price?

Chicken producers in Delaware and nationally have been accused of selling birds at too high a price.

In the latest episode of an ongoing antitrust fight, two national food distributors on Tuesday filed multiple lawsuits in a U.S. court in Illinois alleging producers engaged in an "illegal conspiracy" of price fixing between 2008 and 2016.

"The industry is highly concentrated, with a small number of large producers in the United States controlling supply," the lawsuit states.

Entities belonging to Perdue Farms, Tyson Foods and Mountaire Farms – which each have large footprints in Delaware – were among more than two dozen named defendants in the suit.

Delaware's two other chicken producers, Allen Harim Foods and Amick Farms, are not defendants in the case.

Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson denied the claims and said the lawsuits filed by U.S. Foods Inc. and Sysco Corp. are a common tactic in larger antitrust battles.

"Such complaints do not change our position that the claims are unfounded. We will continue to vigorously defend our company," Mickelson said.

A spokesman for Perdue said the company does not comment on pending litigation. Mountaire did not respond to a request.

Separately, the Florida attorney general also is investigating claims of collusion among chicken producers.

VIDEO: Millsboro neighbors critical of Mountaire's plan to clean up waste

STORY: Chicken truck crash closes road, causes power outages

Producers in Delaware sold 253 million broiler chickens in 2016, valued at $881 million, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Broiler is the term attributed to chickens bred for meat production.

Roughly 14,500 people work for chicken producers on the Delmarva Peninsula, according to data kept by Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc. Those do not include employees at the region's more than 1,500 chicken farms that contract with producers to raise the birds.

An issue in the lawsuit is the way producers report information about output, costs and prices to an industry data company. Plaintiffs say chicken executives use the data company as a conduit through which collusion occurs.

"Defendants entered into a continuing agreement, understanding, and conspiracy in restraint of trade to fix, raise, stabilize, and maintain prices for (chicken meat), thereby creating anti-competitive effects," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also cites a report from the financial analysis website Seeking Alpha, which said: “U.S. consumers have been over-charged for chicken by more than $3 billion per year."

Plaintiffs are seeking an amount of money "to be determined at trial."

The defendants have not yet responded to the complaint.

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.