Minnesota bill seeks to prohibit dominant retailers from owning livestock and meat processing interests

Minnesota bill seeks to prohibit dominant retailers from owning livestock and meat processing interests

ST. PAUL — Vertical integration is the practice of combining more than one stage of production under one company. That can be looked at as efficiency, or, as a bill passing through the Minnesota Legislature looks at it, as a tool to remove competition and assert control over an industry. A grocer union, a beef producer and a meat processor all offered testimony in support of that bill meant to bring back competition in the meat industry. No one …