Six Pork Producers Will Pay $117 Million Over Bacon and Chops Bought Between 2014 and 2018 — Tyson Alone Owes $85 Million, Claims Run to October 29, and Shoppers in 27 States Are Not in the Class

The official settlement website lists the money defendant by defendant: Tyson $85,000,000, Clemens $13,500,000, Seaboard $10,000,000, Hormel $4,465,000, Triumph $4,100,000. The site adds them up itself: “The total amount of the Defendants’ individual settlement payments is $117.065 million.” The sixth settling defendant, Agri Stats, the data company at the center of the case, “has agreed to reform certain business practices but not pay any money.”

That $117 million is the gross figure, and it is worth being precise about what comes out of it before anyone sees a check. According to the FAQ, class counsel will ask the court for attorneys' fees of up to 33⅓ percent of the five cash settlements, up to $5,000,000 in litigation expenses, settlement administration costs, and $3,000 service awards for each class representative — and all of that is “to be paid from the Settlement Funds.” There are 29 named plaintiffs on the site's list. What remains is split pro rata among the people who file valid claims, in proportion to how much pork they say they bought.

The site is unusually direct about the consequence: “At this time, it is unknown how much each Class Member that submits a timely and valid Claim Form will receive.” It also says the administrator “may institute a minimum payment” and that there “may be multiple rounds of distribution if economically feasible.” Anyone quoting a per-person dollar figure for this settlement today is guessing.

The case is In re Pork Antitrust Litigation (Consumer Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs), Case No. 0:18-cv-1776-JRT-JFD, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, before Judge John R. Tunheim. The allegation, in the site's words, is that the pork processors “inflated and stabilized the price and supply of pork through the use of Agri Stats, production restraints and the use of exports.” Agri Stats is the industry data service that collected detailed, non-public production and pricing information from the processors and reported it back to them.

Nobody has been found liable. The site says so twice: “The Court has not ruled that the Defendants did anything wrong, and the companies deny all allegations of wrongdoing.” The settlements are payments to end the case, not admissions.

The Agri Stats settlement is the one with no money in it, and it is also the one you cannot leave: “You cannot opt-out from the Agri Stats Settlement.” What Agri Stats agreed to is a long list of conduct rules that would apply if it ever resumes publishing pork reports — its stated position is that it “does not publish pork processing reports in the United States as of the date of this Settlement Agreement” and “has no plans to resume.” The rules include no participant lists, no plant-level data for other subscribers, every data field at least 45 days old on average, and every field built from at least three companies with none contributing more than 70 percent. That relief runs for five years from whatever date the reports come back.

Three tests, and you have to pass all three.

The product. The class covers people who bought raw pork bacon, or raw pork (fresh or frozen) made from bellies, loins, shoulder, ribs, or pork chops, for personal consumption. Expressly not included: anything marketed as organic or “no antibiotics ever,” and any product other than bacon that is marinated, seasoned, flavored, or breaded. A plain pork chop counts. A pre-seasoned tenderloin does not. Bacon counts in any variety, including Canadian bacon. The site has a searchable Product Eligibility list that runs to ten pages — America's cut chop, arm picnic, arm roast, baby back ribs, back ribs, blade chop and so on down the alphabet.

The years. The purchase has to fall between June 28, 2014 and June 30, 2018. That window closed more than eight years ago, which is why the claim is about your best estimate of purchases, not a receipt drawer.

The place. This is an indirect purchaser case — you bought from a grocery store, not from Tyson — and indirect purchasers can only recover in the states whose laws allow it. The site calls them “Repealer Jurisdictions” and lists them: Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia. That is 23 states and D.C. Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, New Jersey, Washington and the other 21 states are not on the list, and pork bought there is not in this class regardless of how much of it you ate.

Most settlements stagger their dates. This one stacks them. The claim deadline, the opt-out deadline and the objection deadline are all Thursday, October 29, 2026 — submitted online by that date, or mailed and postmarked by that date. From today that is 61 days.

The site includes a warning about postmarks that is worth repeating, because it is the kind of thing that costs people a claim: “mail may not be postmarked the day it is deposited in a mailbox or at a local post office. Postmarks occur when mail reaches a processing facility.” Its own advice is to mail at least a week early, get a manual postmark at a post office counter, or use Certified Mail. Filing online avoids the problem entirely.

The final approval hearing is Friday, December 11, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. Central, before Judge Tunheim in Minneapolis, in person or by video. Preliminary approval came on July 31, 2026. Nothing is paid until the court approves the settlements and any appeals are resolved; the FAQ's own timing language is “It may take time … Please be patient.” Given that the earlier round in this same case took years to move from notice to closed claims, that is not boilerplate.

Opting out keeps your right to sue Tyson, Clemens, Seaboard, Hormel or Triumph on your own and forfeits any payment. Opt-outs have to be individually signed letters — the site says “mass” or “class” requests filed by third parties will not be allowed — mailed to the administrator, Epiq, at P.O. Box 4000, Portland, OR 97208-4000.

This case has already paid notice once. The landing page separates the two rounds explicitly: the JBS and Smithfield settlements, “whose Notice campaign began on July 22, 2021,” and for which “the claim deadline passed on April 22, 2026.” The new six settlements — Agri Stats, Clemens, Hormel, Seaboard, Triumph and Tyson — have their own notice, their own site version, and their own claim form.

The practical point: a claim filed for the JBS and Smithfield money does not carry over. If you want a share of the $117 million, you file again, by October 29. If you never filed in the first round, nothing about that stops you now — the eligibility test is the same product, the same four years, the same 24 jurisdictions.

With these six agreements, the site notes, “All Defendants have now settled.” There will not be a trial on the consumer side of this case.

If the structure sounds familiar, it is. The broiler chicken price-fixing settlements — $203.35 million against Tyson, Pilgrim's, Perdue and others, over the same Agri Stats-centered theory — were approved, claims were filed and audited, and as of our August 22 check the distribution was still held up by an objection to attorneys' fees. Same court system, same kind of class, and a reminder of what “it may take time” means in an antitrust case with tens of thousands of consumer claimants.

The pork case has one advantage the chicken case did not at this stage: it is at the end. Every defendant has settled, so once the December hearing is done and any appeal is exhausted, there is nothing left to wait for except the administrator's math. What that math produces per person depends on how many of the people in those 24 jurisdictions decide to fill in the form.