Published
September 15, 2026
Updated
September 18, 2026
U.S. businesses that directly purchased fresh or frozen, uncooked turkey breast, ground turkey or whole bird turkey products from Butterball, Hormel's Jennie-O Turkey Store or the other turkey processors between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2016 may qualify to claim a share of $93,575,000 in the turkey price-fixing class action settlements. The court ordered notice to begin September 15, 2026 and set October 30, 2026 as the deadline to file a claim form — and a new claim form is required even from companies that filed in the earlier Cargill and Tyson round. Online filing is now open on the official settlement website, using the Unique ID and PIN printed on the notice.
Current Status
Claims are open. On August 26, 2026 Judge Sunil R. Harjani granted preliminary approval to the $34 million Butterball settlement and the $37.5 million Hormel and Jennie-O Turkey Store settlement, approved the claims process, and set a schedule that starts notice on September 15, 2026 and closes claim forms on October 30, 2026. A fairness hearing is set for November 24, 2026.The administrator published the new notice on the official settlement website on schedule, and the Claim Filing section of that site is now accepting online submissions. It had read "Online Claims Filing Coming Soon" earlier in the day. Filing online requires the Unique ID and PIN printed on the notice the administrator mailed or emailed, so the portal is a faster route for a class member who has a notice in hand rather than an alternative for one who does not. A class member holding the pre-printed paper claim form can still file that way instead.
This claims process covers $93,575,000 across six settlements — Cooper Farms and Farbest Foods at $1,687,500 each, House of Raeford at $3,700,000, Prestage at $15,000,000, Hormel/Jennie-O at $37,500,000 and Butterball at $34,000,000. It does not cover the earlier Tyson and Cargill funds — $4,625,000 and $32,500,000 — which are held up pending a Seventh Circuit appeal of the Cargill final approval order and were claimed under a separate, already-closed process.
Three of the settlements in this notice put no money into the fund at all, and it is worth knowing which. Agri Stats pays nothing: its settlement is conduct relief, binding it for five years to make extensive changes to its turkey reports if it ever restarts them, which it stopped doing after this suit was filed. Foster Farms and Perdue pay nothing either — they won summary judgment in July 2026, and their settlements are mutual walk-aways in which neither side pursues the case further or seeks fees or costs from the other.
The single most important thing on this page: a new claim form is required. Filing in the earlier Cargill and Tyson round does not carry forward. The court certified the litigation class in January 2025 with a narrower definition of "turkey" than the Cargill and Tyson settlement classes used, so every prior claim form was built on the wrong product definition for these six settlements. The administrator is sending a pre-printed claim form with each class member's purchases already calculated under the certified definition.
There is no opportunity to opt out. The court certified the class on January 22, 2025, the exclusion deadline passed in May 2025, and the August 26 order expressly declines to reopen it — reasoning that letting class members exclude themselves after summary judgment would invite opt-out decisions based on how the rulings came down. October 30 is a claim and objection deadline, not an exclusion deadline.
This is a direct purchaser class, not a consumer class. It covers the businesses that bought turkey straight from the processors — wholesalers, distributors and large retailers — rather than shoppers who bought a bird at a supermarket. The class is small: the administrator is mailing notice to about 3,357 potential class members and emailing about 351, with four weeks of banner advertising on Supermarket News and Nation's Restaurant News to reach the rest.
The Court-Ordered Schedule
These are the dates as the court set them in its August 26, 2026 order. The two that matter most to a class member are highlighted.| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| August 21, 2026 | Hormel and Jennie-O filed confirmation of notice to government regulators under the Class Action Fairness Act. |
| August 24, 2026 | Butterball filed its own confirmation of CAFA notice to regulators. |
| September 15, 2026 | Settlement administrator commences direct mail and email notice, and begins the publication notice plan. |
| October 16, 2026 | Co-lead counsel file their motion for attorneys' fees, reimbursement of expenses and class representative service awards. |
| October 30, 2026 | Last day for class members to file claim forms, to object to any of the settlements, to object to the fee motion, or to file a notice of appearance at the fairness hearing. |
| November 10, 2026 | Co-lead counsel file the motion for final approval; the settling defendants may respond to any objections. |
| November 24, 2026 | Fairness hearing on the Agri Stats, House of Raeford, Prestage, Foster Farms, Perdue, Hormel/Jennie-O and Butterball settlements. |
The order allows the fairness hearing to be postponed, adjourned or continued, and to be held remotely. If that happens the new date is posted on the official settlement website and no further notice is sent to the class, so confirm the date there before planning to attend.
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Status
Claims Open
Notice published September 15, 2026 by court order · online filing open with the Unique ID and PIN from your notice
Claim Deadline
October 30, 2026
Postmarked or received · also the objection deadline · there is no opt-out in this round
Settlement Funds
$93,575,000 in this claims process
Six settlements · part of roughly $130.7M recovered for the class · Tyson and Cargill are claimed separately
Proof Required
Yes
Unique ID and PIN from the notice to file online · a new claim form is required, pre-printed with your purchases · records needed only to challenge the figures
What Changed Recently?
Notice went out and claims opened. On September 15, 2026 the administrator published the new long-form notice on the official settlement website, opening the six-week window the court set on August 26. The site's Claim Filing section went from "Online Claims Filing Coming Soon" to a working submission portal the same day, which now asks for the Unique ID and PIN from the notice.The case reached the end of its defendant list in the summer of 2026. In July 2026 the court ruled on summary judgment, entering judgment for the direct purchasers on their per se conspiracy claims against Prestage, Hormel/Jennie-O and Butterball while dismissing their rule-of-reason claims, and for Foster Farms and Perdue on the claims against those two. Prestage, Foster Farms and Perdue settled later that month, and the court preliminarily approved the House of Raeford, Prestage, Foster Farms and Perdue settlements on July 30, 2026. The Foster Farms and Perdue agreements are not payments — having won summary judgment, those two simply agreed with the class that neither side would litigate further or seek costs from the other.
Days after that hearing, class counsel reached the $37,500,000 settlement with Hormel Foods and Jennie-O Turkey Store, signed July 30, 2026 and moved for preliminary approval on August 14, 2026. That filing put documented recoveries for the certified class at about $96.7 million — $37.5 million from Hormel on top of $59.2 million from the earlier settlements — and left Butterball as the single remaining non-settling defendant heading to trial. Butterball has since been reported to have settled for $34 million, which would bring the total to roughly $130.7 million. Beyond money, Hormel agreed to help authenticate documents and to provide up to two trial witnesses, cooperation aimed squarely at the case against whoever remained.
The earlier agreements were reached one defendant at a time: Tyson and Cargill before the class was certified, Cooper Farms and Farbest Foods shortly after, Agri Stats in March 2026 — the data company at the center of the case, which settled here alongside parallel settlements in the broiler chicken and pork litigation, on conduct terms rather than a payment — and House of Raeford in April 2026.
Every settling defendant denies the allegations and denies any liability or wrongdoing. The settlements were reached to end the cost and risk of continued litigation, without any admission, and no court has found that any defendant violated the antitrust laws.
Who Qualifies?
The class the court certified on January 22, 2025 is all persons and entities who directly purchased fresh or frozen, uncooked turkey breast, ground turkey or whole bird turkey products from the defendants in the United States during the class period, which runs January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2016.The product definition is narrower than it first sounds, and the exclusions are where most eligibility questions get decided. The certified class products exclude, in every category, organic turkey, turkey raised with no antibiotics ever or antibiotic-free, and cooked or ready-to-eat turkey. On top of that, turkey breast excludes breasts used to make ground turkey and breast tenderloins; ground turkey excludes ground turkey made from breasts or from wings, and burgers, sausages and patties. A buyer whose purchases were entirely organic, antibiotic-free or further-processed has nothing in this class.
"Directly" is the word that decides most eligibility questions. A grocery wholesaler that bought truckloads of whole birds from a processor is a direct purchaser. A supermarket chain that bought from a processor rather than through a distributor is a direct purchaser. A household that bought a Thanksgiving turkey at that supermarket is not — that purchase went through a retailer, which makes it indirect, and indirect purchases are not part of this class.
The processors named as defendants over the life of the case are Butterball; Cargill and Cargill Meat Solutions; Cooper Farms; Farbest Foods; Foster Farms and Foster Poultry Farms; Hormel Foods and Jennie-O Turkey Store; House of Raeford Farms; Perdue Farms and Perdue Foods; Prestage Farms; and Tyson Foods together with Tyson Fresh Meats, Tyson Prepared Foods and The Hillshire Brands Company. Agri Stats, Inc. is also a defendant. Kraft Heinz Foods Company and Kraft Foods Group Brands were dismissed from the case in 2020.
The usual antitrust class exclusions apply: the defendants and their officers, directors, employees and controlled affiliates; the alleged co-conspirators; federal, state and local government entities; the judicial officers presiding over the case, their immediate families and staff; and any class member that validly excludes itself by the deadline.
There Is a Second Turkey Class — Commercial and Institutional Buyers
The same litigation carries a separate track for indirect purchasers that buy turkey for their own use in commercial food preparation — restaurants, caterers, cafeterias, hospitals, schools and similar institutional kitchens that bought through a distributor rather than from a processor. The court certified a class of all entities in the indirect purchaser states that indirectly purchased fresh or frozen, uncooked turkey breast, ground turkey or whole bird turkey products sold by the defendants in the United States from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2016, for their own use in commercial food preparation.That class has its own settlements, its own notices, its own deadlines and its own website, Turkey Commercial Case.com. Settlements with Perdue and Foster Farms, and a separate one with Agri Stats, have received preliminary approval on that side of the case. A business that bought turkey through a broadline distributor for its kitchen belongs on that site, not on the direct purchaser one.
Neither track reaches household grocery shoppers. There is no consumer claim to file in this case.
How Much Can You Get?
Payments are pro rata, scaled to the dollar value of each class member's qualifying direct purchases of turkey during the class period. A buyer that accounted for a large share of the class's total purchases receives a correspondingly large share of the distribution; a small buyer receives a small one. No per-claimant figure has been published, and none can be estimated responsibly until the administrator knows how much of the class files.The pool in this claims process is $93,575,000. Court-awarded attorneys' fees, litigation expenses, notice and administration costs and service awards come out of it before class members are paid. Co-lead counsel are making a second fee request of up to one third including interest and net of costs, plus service awards of up to $25,000 per class representative; the court decides those amounts at or after the fairness hearing and can award less than is asked. Counsel were also permitted to draw up to $250,000 from each settlement fund to pay for notice and administration.
Because the case has settled in stages, a company that bought from several processors over the seven-year class period can have a stake in more than one settlement fund. That is the practical reason to check purchase records against the whole defendant list rather than only the two names in the current notice.
What Proof or Notice ID Is Required?
A claim form is required — that is the proof that matters here. But the process is lighter than most business claims, because the administrator has done the arithmetic first.Each class member receives a pre-printed claim form with its purchases already calculated under the certified class definition, from the transaction data the defendants produced in the litigation. A company that agrees with the figure does not have to document anything; it confirms and files.
A company that disagrees uses the Purchase Audit Request Form, which the court approved alongside the claim form specifically so class members can supplement or challenge their pre-printed amounts. That is where records come in — invoices and receipts showing the product, the seller, the date and the net purchase amount. Because the class period closed at the end of 2016, those will be archived accounts-payable files, and pulling them is the slow part. A buyer that suspects the pre-printed figure is low should start looking now rather than in the last week of October.
The one thing nobody can skip: filing again. Prior claim forms in this case were built on the Cargill and Tyson settlement definition of turkey, which is broader than the certified class definition governing these six settlements. A company that filed in 2025 and assumes it is covered will be left out.
What Is the Deadline?
Claim forms are due October 30, 2026. The court's order sets that as the last day for a single combined list of actions: filing a claim form, objecting to any of the settlements, objecting to the fee and service-award motion, and filing a notice of appearance at the fairness hearing. The order states the date without a timezone, so treat the date itself as the cutoff and check the notice for the postmark rule if you file on paper.Objections must be postmarked or received by the same date. October 30 is not an exclusion deadline, because there is no exclusion available: the court certified the class in January 2025, class members were told their requests to be excluded were due by May 22, 2025, and the August 26, 2026 order declines to reopen that window.
A class member who does nothing by October 30 is not left with nothing — it still gets the benefit of the Agri Stats conduct reform and the cooperation promises — but it gets no money from the $93,575,000, and it is still bound by the releases. Those releases give up the right to sue Agri Stats, House of Raeford, Prestage, Hormel/Jennie-O and Butterball over the released claims, and also give up the right to appeal the summary judgment the court entered in favor of Foster Farms and Perdue.
One earlier date is worth knowing even though it is not yours to meet: co-lead counsel file their fee motion on October 16, two weeks before the objection deadline. A class member who wants to object to the fee request has that fortnight to read it.
Why Tyson and Cargill Are Not in This Claims Process
The Tyson and Cargill settlements — $4,625,000 and $32,500,000 — sit outside this round, and the reason is worth understanding because it explains why a new claim form is required.Both were reached before the court certified the litigation class, so each defined its own settlement class around a broader definition of turkey than the certified class uses. They ran their own claim process, whose claim, exclusion and objection deadlines all fell on April 21, 2025, with a fairness hearing on June 18, 2025. That process is concluded and closed to new claims.
Those two funds are also not being distributed yet. Both are held pending the resolution of a Seventh Circuit appeal of the Cargill final approval order, and they will be distributed separately, under the already-completed claims process and the broader settlement-class definition of turkey. The interim fee award, expense reimbursement and service awards the court granted from those funds in July 2025 are likewise unpaid while that appeal runs.
The practical consequence: a company's Cargill-round claim form has no effect on the six settlements in this round, and its share of those two funds is a separate, later payment it does not need to do anything about now.
How Do You Take Action?
Direct purchaser claims are handled through the official settlement website, Turkey Litigation.com, run by the court-appointed administrator, A.B. Data, Ltd. The site hosts the notices, the claim form, the settlement agreements and the court orders for each settlement in the direct purchaser track. The new notice is posted there now, and the site's Claim Filing section is accepting online submissions. The same site is where the order requires any change to the fairness hearing date to be posted.Filing online means logging in with the Unique ID and PIN printed on the notice the administrator sent. A class member that has the notice can file in a few minutes. A class member that believes it qualifies but has no notice — or cannot find the credentials — has to reach the administrator through the contact details printed on the official notice, and should do that well before October 30 rather than in the last week. The deadline is set by court order, not by the administrator, so it does not move to accommodate a lost ID.
A class member who wants to speak at the fairness hearing has to say so separately, in a Notice of Intention to Appear postmarked no later than October 30, 2026 and sent to the Clerk of the Court and to counsel for every settling defendant. It has to give the individual's name, the name of the business that bought the class products, a current mailing address and telephone number, and a signature. The addresses are printed on the official notice.
Filing means identifying the purchasing entity, reviewing the purchase data the administrator has for it, and either accepting those figures or submitting the invoices and receipts that support a different number. A company that bought under more than one legal name, or that has since been acquired or merged, should say so on the claim form rather than filing twice, since a corporate family's purchases are generally claimed together.
Commercial and institutional buyers that purchased indirectly file on Turkey Commercial Case.com instead, under that class's own deadlines.
What the Case Alleges
The complaint that opened this litigation in December 2019 alleges that the turkey processors agreed to exchange detailed, current and forward-looking information about their production and sales through Agri Stats, a subscription service that collected data from the processors, standardized it and returned monthly reports comparing each participant to the rest of the industry. The plaintiffs allege the reports were not the kind of aggregated public benchmark other industries use, but plant-level detail that competitors could decode, available only to processors that contributed their own data and never to the buyers on the other side of the market.The alleged effect was a restraint on supply and an increase in price: the complaint points to industry-wide production cuts, wholesale turkey prices that rose out of line with feed costs beginning around 2009 and 2010, and prices that fell back toward feed costs after the broiler chicken litigation was filed in late 2016. The plaintiffs brought the case under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
The case narrowed twice, and in opposite directions. In October 2020 the court allowed it to proceed but held the plaintiffs had adequately alleged a Sherman Act violation only under a rule of reason analysis rather than a per se theory; it dismissed the Kraft defendants and denied the motions filed by Farbest and Cooper Farms. Then in July 2026, on summary judgment, the court went the other way on the legal theory: it entered judgment for the direct purchasers on their per se conspiracy claims against Prestage, Hormel/Jennie-O and Butterball while dismissing the rule-of-reason claims, and for Foster Farms and Perdue on the claims against them.
That ruling is why the remaining defendants settled within weeks of it and why the case never reached the trial that had been set for October 2026. It is also why the court refused to reopen the opt-out window: allowing exclusions after a summary judgment ruling would let class members choose based on how it came out.
The settlements resolve the claims without any admission of wrongdoing, and no defendant has been found liable to the class.
The turkey case is one of three parallel antitrust actions built around the same data service. OCA's coverage of the broiler chicken side includes the Agri Stats chicken price-fixing settlement update and the chicken price-fixing settlement payments page, and the pork side is covered on the pork price-fixing settlement page.
What Happens Next?
The fairness hearing on November 24, 2026 is where the court decides whether the settlements are fair, reasonable and adequate and rules on the fee, expense and service-award requests. Timely objections are heard there. The court will hold it remotely, by telephone or video conference, and it can change the connection details or move the date without sending the class any further notice — updates go on the settlement website only.Payment comes after that, and not immediately. The distribution plan itself has not been filed: the order contemplates a later motion for approval of distribution, once the claims process has run and the administrator knows what was claimed. No payment date has been announced.
The order does settle one question that usually needs a second round of notice. If money is left after distribution and a further redistribution would not be cost-effective, the court pre-approved four options for where it goes: the American Antitrust Institute, No Kid Hungry, an equal split among the attorneys general of California, Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah — the six states that sued Agri Stats separately — or escheat to the State of Illinois. The court reserved the actual decision but approved disclosing the options now, so class members will not receive another mailing about it.
Sources and Verification
This page draws on the official direct purchaser settlement website, Turkey Litigation.com, and the commercial and institutional indirect purchaser website, Turkey Commercial Case.com, both administered by A.B. Data, Ltd.; on the public docket in In re Turkey Antitrust Litigation, No. 1:19-cv-08318, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, including the class action complaint filed December 19, 2019 and the October 19, 2020 memorandum opinion on the motions to dismiss.The schedule, the class definition, the product exclusions, the $93,575,000 figure, the absence of a second opt-out and the cy pres options on this page are drawn from three filings in that docket, read directly:
- Document 1967, the order granting preliminary approval of the Butterball and Hormel/Jennie-O settlements, approving the notice plan and setting the schedule, entered August 26, 2026.
- Document 1956, direct purchaser plaintiffs' memorandum in support of preliminary approval of the Butterball settlement, filed August 21, 2026 — the source for the claims-process breakdown and the explanation of why a new claim form is required.
- Document 1937, the parallel memorandum for the Hormel and Jennie-O settlement, filed August 14, 2026.
The page was then checked line by line against the long-form notice published on the official settlement website once the notice program opened on September 15, 2026, which is the source for the Tyson figure of $4,625,000, the postmark rule on objections, the conduct-only character of the Agri Stats settlement and the mutual-waiver character of the Foster Farms and Perdue settlements. Where this page gives a figure, the filings or the notice state it; the roughly $130.7 million total recovery comes from Document 1956. Deadlines and the class definition should still be confirmed against the notice and claim form on the official settlement website before filing — that notice, not this page, governs.
For a closely comparable business-to-business antitrust claim window open right now, see OCA's page on the diisocyanates (MDI and TDI) price-fixing settlements.
Questions
Can I file a claim if I bought turkey at the grocery store?
No. This settlement class covers direct purchasers only — the businesses and entities that bought turkey straight from a turkey processor or an alleged co-conspirator, such as grocery wholesalers, distributors and large retailers. A household that bought a turkey at a supermarket bought it indirectly, from the retailer, and is not part of the direct purchaser class. There is a separate track in the same case for commercial and institutional buyers that purchased indirectly for use in commercial food preparation, which has its own website and its own notices.
What counts as turkey for purposes of the class?
Fresh or frozen, uncooked turkey breast, ground turkey and whole bird turkey products bought directly from the defendants between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2016. The exclusions matter: every category excludes organic turkey, turkey raised with no antibiotics ever or antibiotic-free, and cooked or ready-to-eat turkey. Turkey breast also excludes breasts used to make ground turkey and breast tenderloins, and ground turkey also excludes ground turkey made from breasts or wings, and burgers, sausages and patties.
Can I file my claim online?
Yes. The Claim Filing section of the official settlement website is accepting online submissions. Logging in takes the Unique ID and PIN printed on the notice the administrator mailed or emailed, so a class member that has its notice can file in a few minutes. There is no way into the portal without those credentials — a company that believes it qualifies but has no notice has to reach the administrator through the contact details printed on the official notice. Filing the pre-printed paper claim form by mail remains an alternative.
Do I need invoices to file?
Only if you disagree with the figure on your form. The administrator sends a pre-printed claim form with your purchases already calculated from the transaction data the defendants produced, and a company that accepts that figure simply confirms and files. A company that wants to supplement or challenge the amount uses the Purchase Audit Request Form, and that is where invoices showing the product, the seller, the date and the net purchase amount come in.
I already filed a claim in the Cargill round. Do I have to file again?
Yes. A new claim form is required, and this is the most common way a class member will lose money here. The Cargill and Tyson settlements were reached before the court certified the litigation class and used a broader definition of turkey, so every claim form filed in that round was built on the wrong product definition for these six settlements. The court approved a fresh, pre-printed claim form for this round, due October 30, 2026.
How much will a claim actually pay?
No per-claimant estimate has been published, and the distribution plan has not been filed yet. Payments are pro rata, scaled to each class member's qualifying purchases, out of what is left of the $93,575,000 after court-awarded attorneys' fees of up to one third, litigation expenses, notice and administration costs and service awards of up to $25,000 per class representative. Your pre-printed claim form shows the purchase figure your share will be calculated from.
Do all seven settling defendants pay money?
No. Four pay into the fund in this round — Butterball $34,000,000, Hormel and Jennie-O $37,500,000, Prestage $15,000,000 and House of Raeford $3,700,000 — alongside the earlier Cooper Farms and Farbest Foods settlements at $1,687,500 each. Agri Stats pays nothing: its settlement is conduct relief binding it for five years if it ever restarts its turkey reports. Foster Farms and Perdue pay nothing either, because they won summary judgment in July 2026; their settlements are mutual agreements not to litigate further or seek costs from each other.
Has anyone been found guilty of fixing turkey prices?
No defendant has been found liable to the class, and the settlements resolve the claims without any admission of wrongdoing. The litigation did get further than most, though: in July 2026 the court entered summary judgment for the direct purchasers on their per se conspiracy claims against Prestage, Hormel/Jennie-O and Butterball, while dismissing the rule-of-reason claims and entering judgment for Foster Farms and Perdue. The remaining defendants settled within weeks and the October 2026 trial never happened.
Official Settlement Notice
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Settlement Amount
$93,575,000 in this claims process
Butterball $34M · Hormel/Jennie-O $37.5M · Prestage $15M · House of Raeford $3.7M · Cooper Farms and Farbest $1,687,500 each · roughly $130.7M recovered in total
Case Title
In re Turkey Antitrust Litigation
Case Number
1:19-cv-08318
Court
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois
Class Period
January 1, 2010 – December 31, 2016
Final Approval Hearing
November 24, 2026
Before Judge Sunil R. Harjani · may be postponed or held remotely · changes posted on the settlement website only
Administrator
A.B. Data, Ltd.
Official Website
Turkey Litigation.com
