Tyson Beef Direct Buyers Settlement

Businesses only, not grocery shoppers. This is the direct purchaser beef price-fixing settlement: it pays buyers who purchased beef straight from Tyson, JBS, Cargill or National Beef or their subsidiaries and affiliates between January 1, 2015 and February 29, 2020. If you bought your beef at a supermarket, a warehouse club, a butcher shop or a restaurant, you are an indirect purchaser and you are not in this class. The consumer version of this case — the $87.5 million indirect purchaser settlement with Tyson and Cargill — closed to claims on June 30, 2026, and nothing here reopens it. Three more things cut against the headline. First, the $82.5 million is two pots. The filed agreement splits Tyson's payment into $80,000,000 plus a separate $2,500,000 for settlement notice and administrative costs — and that $2.5 million cap applies only to notice and administration, not to fees, not to litigation costs and not to the settlement as a whole. Out of the rest come attorney's fees of up to 33-1/3%, incurred litigation costs up to $1.5 million, $25,000 service awards for each of three class representatives, and $5 million reserved for future litigation against Cargill and National Beef. If the Court grants every request at its cap, roughly $46.8 million is left to divide. Second, only four primal cuts count — loin, chuck, rib and round, as boxed or case-ready beef. Ground beef is excluded, as are organic, grass-fed, kosher, halal, certified humane, Wagyu and “American-Style Kobe Beef,” anything cooked, marinated, seasoned, flavored or breaded, and byproducts like trim, fats, hides and offal. Third, the class period stops at February 29, 2020, about two years earlier than the JBS direct purchaser class — which is why a pre-populated Tyson figure will not match a JBS one. Payment is pro rata with no announced minimum, and the official site says distribution begins only after final approval and any appeals are resolved.

Do I Qualify?

You may be eligible if:

• You are a person or entity that purchased Beef DIRECTLY from Tyson, JBS, Cargill or National Beef, or from one of their subsidiaries or affiliates. This is the limit that disqualifies nearly everyone who finds this page: buying beef at a grocery store, warehouse club, butcher shop or restaurant makes you an INDIRECT purchaser, and indirect purchasers are not in this class. The separate $87.5 million consumer beef settlement with Tyson and Cargill closed to claims on June 30, 2026
• The purchase was for use or delivery in the United States, fresh or frozen
• The purchase happened between January 1, 2015 and February 29, 2020. Purchases after February 29, 2020 do not count here, even though the earlier JBS direct purchaser class period ran through February 10, 2022
• The product was boxed beef or case-ready beef — cut into subprimals and packaged for resale — made from Fed Cattle in the United States
• The product came from the LOIN, CHUCK, RIB or ROUND primal cuts. No other primal counts
• The product was not marketed as organic, grass-fed, kosher, halal, certified humane, Wagyu or “American-Style Kobe Beef”, and was not cooked, ground, marinated, seasoned, flavored or breaded. GROUND BEEF IS EXCLUDED
• The product was not drop byproduct — trim, fats, oils, hides and offal are all out — and, case-ready beef aside, was not further processed at another plant
• You are not a Defendant, an officer, director or employee of a Defendant, an entity in which a Defendant has a controlling interest, or an affiliate, legal representative, heir or assign of a Defendant
• You are not a federal, state or local governmental entity. Public school districts, municipalities, state agencies and public hospital systems that bought beef directly from these packers are excluded in every state
• You are not the judicial officer presiding over the action, a member of that officer's immediate family or judicial staff, or a juror assigned to the action
• You did not opt out of the Tyson settlement. Requests for exclusion are due October 23, 2026, and anyone who opts out may not seek settlement proceeds. Opting out of the earlier JBS settlement does NOT remove you from this Tyson class
• Where you are located does not matter. There is no state test, no state subclass and no residency requirement anywhere in the class definition

Which proof you need depends entirely on whether the defendants' records already have you. Class members whose purchases appear in those records are being sent a pre-populated claim form with a Unique ID and PIN. Logging in at www.BeefDirectPurchaserSettlement.com with that Unique ID and PIN displays your known qualifying purchases broken out by defendant and by year, plus a total for January 1, 2015 through February 29, 2020, and you can accept those figures online or by mail without sending a single invoice. One claim form is required for each Unique ID, so an organization that received several notices has to file several times; the site refuses a Unique ID and PIN that have already been used and refers you to info@BeefDirectPurchaserSettlement.com. If you disagree with the pre-populated figures, or if you never received a notice, you are building the claim from your own records. The blank form is reached from the “Don't have a Unique Id and PIN? Click Here.” link on the login page. Either route requires a spreadsheet or table covering ALL purchases from the Defendants you are claiming during the class period, listing the purchase amount, the defendant, the year of purchase, the beef product (sirloin steak, chuck roast and so on) and the total purchase amount. It also requires actual receipts or invoices showing the product name, the name of the Defendant manufacturer, the date of purchase and the net purchase amount. Send legible copies and keep your originals — the administrator asks that you not send them. Expect the product name to be the pivotal detail, because it is what determines whether a line item is a qualifying loin, chuck, rib or round primal or an excluded ground, further-processed or byproduct purchase. Audit requests and supporting documentation are due November 30, 2026, the same date as the claim itself. Anyone who filed an approved claim in the earlier JBS settlement is automatically eligible and does not have to file again, and anyone who has already submitted a Tyson claim form does not need to resubmit it. For paper forms or help: DPP Beef Litigation Helpline 877-331-0717, info@BeefDirectPurchaserSettlement.com, or DPP Beef Litigation, c/o A.B. Data, Ltd., PO Box 173066, Milwaukee, WI 53217 — with “DPP Beef Litigation” noted on the envelope or subject line.

What Happened?

The case is In re Cattle and Beef Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 0:22-md-03031-JRT-JFD, in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota before Judge John R. Tunheim. This settlement was filed under the related caption In re DPP Beef Litigation. Class Counsel are Gustafson Gluek PLLC; Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP; Hartley LLP; and Hausfeld LLP.

The Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs allege that the meatpacker defendants conspired to fix, raise, maintain and stabilize the price of beef beginning at least as early as 2015, in violation of federal antitrust law. Tyson denies any wrongdoing, and the Court has not decided whether Tyson did anything wrong.

The named Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs are Gregg Szilagyi, solely in his capacity as Chapter 7 trustee for the bankruptcy estate of Central Grocers, Inc., together with R&D Marketing, LLC and Redner's Markets, Inc. All three are businesses that bought from the packers, which is the clearest signal of who this class is for.

Tyson Foods, Inc. and Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc. entered a long-form settlement agreement with the direct purchaser class as of April 3, 2026, filed with the Court on April 17, 2026. Under it Tyson pays $80,000,000 plus $2,500,000 in settlement notice and administrative costs, and agrees to provide specified cooperation to the Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs in their continued prosecution of the case against the remaining defendants.

The Court granted preliminary approval on May 14, 2026, then adjusted the notice schedule twice — on August 18 and again on September 14, 2026 — which is how the exclusion and objection deadline came to be extended to October 23, 2026 and the claim deadline set at November 30, 2026. The Fairness Hearing is currently scheduled for November 12, 2026 in Courtroom 15, 300 South Fourth Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415.

This is the second direct purchaser settlement in the litigation. JBS settled with the same class for $52.5 million under a settlement the Court finally approved in 2022. Because the Tyson class definition differs from the JBS one — most importantly a class period ending February 29, 2020 rather than February 10, 2022 — a class member's pre-populated Tyson purchase figure will not match their JBS figure.

Cargill and National Beef remain defendants and those claims are unresolved, which is why $5 million of the fund is earmarked for future litigation costs. The indirect purchaser (consumer) side of the litigation was resolved separately: an $87.5 million settlement with Tyson and Cargill that stopped accepting claims on June 30, 2026.

How to File Your Claim

1. FIRST, WORK OUT WHICH KIND OF CLASS MEMBER YOU ARE, BECAUSE THE PROCESS IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. If a notice arrived with a Unique ID and a PIN, the defendants' own records already show your purchases and the claim is mostly a review exercise. If no notice arrived, you have to build the claim from your own invoices
2. IF YOU HAVE A NOTICE: log in at www.BeefDirectPurchaserSettlement.com with the Unique ID and PIN printed on it. The site then shows a table of your known qualifying purchases year by year and defendant by defendant, along with your total known qualifying purchases from the Defendants for January 1, 2015 through February 29, 2020. You can accept those figures online or by mail
3. ONE CLAIM FORM PER UNIQUE ID. An organization that received more than one notice has to submit a form for each Unique ID, even though it is one company. The site rejects a Unique ID and PIN that have already been used and sends you to info@BeefDirectPurchaserSettlement.com, so do not reuse credentials across locations
4. IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THE PRE-POPULATED FIGURES, FILE AN AUDIT REQUEST BY NOVEMBER 30, 2026. The official form requires a spreadsheet or table covering ALL purchases from the Defendants you are claiming in the period, listing the purchase amount, the defendant, the year of purchase, the beef product (sirloin steak, chuck roast and so on) and the total purchase amount, plus actual receipts or invoices. Submit it online or postmarked by the same November 30, 2026 date
5. IF YOU NEVER RECEIVED A NOTICE, USE THE BLANK CLAIM FORM. The login page carries a “Don't have a Unique Id and PIN? Click Here.” link that opens the blank form, where you enter the purchase table yourself and upload your supporting documentation
6. WHAT AN INVOICE HAS TO SHOW. Documentation must include the product name, the name of the Defendant manufacturer, the date of purchase and the net purchase amount. Send legible copies, keep your originals, and expect the product name to matter — it is how the administrator decides whether a line item is a qualifying primal cut or excluded ground, further-processed or byproduct beef
7. IF YOU ALREADY FILED AN APPROVED CLAIM IN THE JBS SETTLEMENT, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FILE AGAIN. The official site states that you are automatically eligible to receive a payment and need not submit another claim. It also warns that your pre-populated Tyson amount WILL differ from your JBS amount because the class definitions differ, so review the new pre-populated form rather than assuming the old number carried over. All class members for whom data is available are being sent a new pre-populated claim form for this settlement
8. ANYONE WHO HAS ALREADY SUBMITTED A TYSON CLAIM FORM DOES NOT NEED TO RESUBMIT IT
9. OCTOBER 23, 2026 IS A DIFFERENT DEADLINE AND IT COMES FIRST. That is the extended date by which a request for exclusion must be postmarked or received and by which an objection must be filed. It has nothing to do with filing a claim, and opting out means you may not seek settlement proceeds at all
10. PAPER FORMS, QUESTIONS AND MAILED SUBMISSIONS go to the DPP Beef Litigation Helpline at 877-331-0717, info@BeefDirectPurchaserSettlement.com, or DPP Beef Litigation, c/o A.B. Data, Ltd., PO Box 173066, Milwaukee, WI 53217. The administrator asks that “DPP Beef Litigation” appear on any correspondence, envelope or subject line
11. Visit the official claim form: https://www.beefdirectpurchasersettlement.com/

How Much Will I Actually Get?

There is one benefit here and one way it is sized: a pro rata cash share of the Net Settlement Fund, scaled to your qualifying beef purchases measured against the combined qualifying purchases of every class member who participates. There is no flat per-claimant amount, no second tier for proven losses, and no announced minimum or guaranteed payment of any kind — the official materials describe the pro rata division and stop there. NO PER-CLAIMANT ESTIMATE HAS BEEN PUBLISHED, and a claimant with a notice can see their own purchase total but still cannot compute a payment, because the denominator depends on who else files. READ THE $82.5 MILLION CAREFULLY, BECAUSE IT IS TWO SEPARATE POTS AND ONLY ONE OF THEM IS YOURS. The filed settlement agreement defines the Settlement Amount as Tyson's payment of $80,000,000 plus a separate payment of settlement notice and administrative costs of $2,500,000, and it defines that $2,500,000 as the Settlement Costs Amount. THAT $2.5 MILLION CAP IS A CAP ON ONE PIECE OF THIS SETTLEMENT AND NOTHING ELSE — it covers notice and claims administration only. It is not a cap on attorneys' fees, not a cap on litigation costs, and not a ceiling on the settlement as a whole, and it is not money that gets divided among class members. THEN THE DEDUCTIONS COME OUT OF THE REST. The official site lists what the Settlement Proceeds will be used to pay before class members: notice and claims administration costs; attorney's fees up to 33-1/3% of the Settlement Proceeds; incurred litigation costs not to exceed $1.5 million; service awards up to $25,000 for each of the three class representatives; and future litigation costs of $5 million. Every one of those is subject to Court approval. The $5 million is worth pausing on: it is a war chest to keep prosecuting the case against Cargill and National Beef, not compensation for anyone filing a claim. If the Court approves every request at its stated cap, roughly $46.8 million of the $82.5 million headline would be left to divide — about 57 cents on the headline dollar, and that is arithmetic from the published caps rather than a figure the administrator has announced. NOTHING GETS PAID SOON. The Fairness Hearing is currently scheduled for November 12, 2026 at the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, Courtroom 15, 300 South Fourth Street, Minneapolis. The official site says a claims process will commence to distribute the Net Settlement Funds only after the Court approves the Settlement and any appeals are resolved. No payment date has been announced. THIS SETTLEMENT ALSO DOES NOT END THE CASE. It applies to Tyson Foods, Inc. and Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc. only and does not affect claims against the other Defendants; Tyson additionally agreed to provide specified cooperation to the Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs in their continued prosecution of the litigation against Cargill and National Beef. Those claims are unresolved, which means a later settlement could add money for the same purchases — and also means this is the second round, not the first: JBS settled with the direct purchaser class for $52.5 million and that settlement was finally approved in 2022.

Last reviewed: October 4, 2026 | Information verified from court records and official settlement documents.

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