Justice Dept. anti-trust unit looks at food industry

The antitrust division of the Department of Justice is beginning to look into the food industry despite resistance from other parts of the Obama administration, Stephen Labaton reports for The New York Times.

Independent Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont wants to know if small farms are being hampered unfairly by large food processors, particularly in the milk industry. But using the power of the antitrust division would be a dramatic policy change from the Bush administration, which limited actions against large corporations who used market dominance to reduce competition.

The current debates “get to the heart and soul of exactly what the competition policy of the Obama administration will be,” Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America told the Times. (Read more)