FTC complaint: Horizon Family Brands acquisition of Maple Hill will increase market concentration, reduce competition, and harm family-scale organic dairy farmers and consumers.
Organic Eye | Mark Kastel | January 21, 2026
LA FARGE, WIS. —OrganicEye, a prominent nonprofit public-interest organization that acts as an organic industry watchdog, has formally requested the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigate Horizon Family Brands’ proposed acquisition of Maple Hill Farms, citing serious antitrust concerns that could significantly increase market concentration, reduce competition, and harm family-scale organic dairy farmers.
On December 1, 2025, Horizon Family Brands announced its intention to acquire Maple Hill Farms, a leading, nationally-distributed brand of certified organic, 100% grass-fed dairy products — an acquisition that would materially impact both the wholesale market for organic milk and the consumer market for organic dairy products nationwide.
“Horizon already controls a larger share of the organic fluid milk market than any other brand in the United States,” said Mark A. Kastel, Executive Director of OrganicEye. “Acquiring Maple Hill would further entrench market dominance in an industry that is already highly concentrated and dysfunctional, with many family farmers forced out by anti-competitive practices.”
Horizon Family Brands is owned by Platinum Equity, a global investment firm managing approximately $50 billion in assets. Purportedly the largest brand of organic dairy products, holding an estimated 25 percent of the organic fluid milk market in the United States and the largest name brand by dollar volume in the organic industry, Horizon Family Brands also controls the Wallaby brand of certified organic yogurt.
Maple Hill Farms reported approximately $93 million in sales in 2024 and exclusively sells grass-fed organic milk. This rapidly growing segment of the organic dairy market is disproportionately supplied by family-scale farms, particularly in the eastern United States, where farmers have historically relied on having more than one buyer and more than one viable production model.
The proposed acquisition would place Horizon, Wallaby, and Maple Hill under common ownership — further consolidating an already highly concentrated organic dairy marketplace — and threatens to substantially reduce competition in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act and raises additional concerns under the Sherman Act.
Horizon-branded products span both baseline USDA organic offerings and premium 100%-grass-fed products marketed with enhanced production claims, and place Horizon in direct competition with Maple Hill’s core value proposition. In their letter to the FTC, OrganicEye argues that the loss of Maple Hill as an independent competitor would reduce choices for consumers while weakening farmers’ bargaining power.
Horizon’s corporate history includes prior ownership under Dean Foods and WhiteWave, companies that were widely criticized for lowering prices paid to organic dairy farmers and terminating some in violation of their contracts — practices that had a chilling effect on free-market pricing, driving some of their farmer-suppliers out of business.
The Horizon brand has also faced vociferous criticism by organic consumers and farm groups for depending on giant factory dairies west of the Mississippi that are milking thousands of cows each, placing pioneering organic farm families at a competitive disadvantage.
READ THE FULL STORY: https://organiceye.org/organic-industry-consolidation-challenged/