Frozen fries sold in Quebec: the “potato cartel” accused of fixing prices

After the United States, it is Quebec’s turn. Two Canadian potato giants are allegedly part of a “potato cartel” and are accused of having fixed the price of frozen fries here since 2021.

• Also read: “Potato cartel”: two Canadian agri-food companies prosecuted in the United States

McCain and Cavendish are targeted in a request for authorization to exercise a class action filed Monday morning at the Montreal courthouse. A similar lawsuit was filed on November 15 in Illinois, USA.

The four companies targeted in the Quebec lawsuit allegedly carried out “price increases in a coordinated manner, several times a year, while the prices of these products were previously indexed annually”.

McCain, Cavendish, Simplot and Lamb Weston allegedly used, the lawsuit states, the Potato Trac program, from the firm Circana, to communicate their confidential data.

The “cartel” was thus able to “artificially inflate” the price of frozen fries.

87% increase in four years

The Quebec lawsuit, brought by the Belleau Lapointe law firm, echoes another cartel, that of bread, which has been making machetes since Loblaw’s admission, in 2017, of its participation in a scheme to fix the price of bread.

The company agreed to pay $500M last July to settle a class action lawsuit to this effect. The Competition Bureau’s investigation is still continuing into the five other companies targeted by the request.

The frozen fried potato market is dominated by McCain, indicates a study by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Quebec (MAPAQ) in 2022. The company then had 78.9% of the shares of the Canadian retail market in 2022, compared to 6.2% for Cavendish, which is owned by JD Irving.

The price increase was 87% in four years on certain products in the frozen fried potato section, indicate figures from the Quebec application Glouton.

In July 2020, a 900 gram bag of McCain frozen fries retailed for $2.25, compared to $3.79 for the same bag – increased to 800 grams – in July 2024.

According to Statistics Canada, the price of a 750 gram bag of frozen fried potatoes increased from $2.30 in July 2020 to $3.74 in July 2024, a jump of 63%.

McCain Foods “strongly disputes any allegation that the company violated antitrust laws,” the company said in a statement. Journal a company representative, Charlie Angelakos, Monday. Cavendish Farms declined to comment on the lawsuit.