AUGUSTA — Maine Attorney General William Schneider announced that a $135,000 settlement in a global price-fixing case will be split between Auburn’s Good Shepherd Food-Bank and the state’s Emergency Food Assistance Program.

The food bank is the state’s largest distributor of emergency food. The EFA is administered by the Maine Department of Agriculture, and stores and distributes frozen and refrigerated donated food to needy Mainers.

The money comes from 10 separate vitamin manufacturers, all of which agreed to terms of the latest settlement. The agreement authorized Schneider to keep a portion of the proceeds for expenses the state incurred in bringing the case, but he opted to distribute the entire settlement amount to maximize the relief going directly to Mainers.

This is the second settlement in the price-fixing case. Maine received $1.245 million in 2001 as part of a $225 million settlement among a number of states.

The price-fixing conspiracy among vitamin manufacturers indirectly raised the cost of food between 1988 and 2000. Because the majority of all food items sold commercially contain vitamins or vitamin products, food manufacturers supplementing their products with overpriced vitamins and nutrients resulted in higher prices for consumers, according to Schneider’s office. 

Schneider decided to use the settlement money for emergency hunger relief to do the greatest good for Maine people still struggling to recover from the economic downturn. The plan was approved by the judge who oversaw the case.

The Good Shepherd Food-Bank will use its portion of the funds to purchase Maine-grown produce and Maine-processed food, as well as other vital food purchases from producers outside Maine, for distribution throughout the state, according to the Attorney General’s Office. The Emergency Food Assistance Program will improve its refrigerated storage facility to better enable it to store and distribute frozen and refrigerated donated food.

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