WASHINGTON, July 2 -- Cal-Maine Foods Inc. CALM, the country's largest egg producer, agreed this week to pay $3.3 million and donate 53 million eggs to food banks, settling federal and state allegations that it worked with two smaller rivals to rig the price benchmark that determines what American grocery stores, restaurants and consumers pay for eggs.

The Justice Department and attorneys general in 17 states accused Cal-Maine, Versova and Hickman's Egg Ranch of coordinating the bids they submitted to Urner Barry, the trade publisher whose daily price quotations function as the industry's reference point for nearly every dozen eggs sold in the country. Between June 2022 and March 2025, prosecutors allege, the three companies communicated...