Amid a spike in the price of meat over the last year, President Joe Biden's administration says it has a plan to drive down those numbers at the grocery store. 

 The Biden administration says it wants to take a tougher stance against the meatpacking industry. 

“Our job is to make sure the farmer gets a fair price and that when I go to the grocery store and I'm in the checkout line, I'm paying a fair price,” says U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

The U.S. Consumer Price Index showed in July that prices for beef and veal were up 6.5% up from a year earlier, while poultry was up 5.3% and pork climbed 7.8%. 

Of the five, the administration blamed the meatpacking industry, which is controlled by about four big corporations. 

The White House feels that there may be some anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior in the industry and wants to investigate. 

Meat producers rejected the White House's claims, saying that market forces were driving up prices.

In a statement, Tyson Foods said, "Multiple, unprecedented market shocks, including a global pandemic and severe weather conditions, led to an unexpected and drastic drop in meat processors' abilities to operate at full capacity."

Mark Dopp, of the North American Meat Institute said in part, "Issuing inflammatory statements that ignore the fundamentals of how supply and demand affects markets accomplishes nothing."

The Biden administration is allocating $1.4 billion to small meat producers in a bid to bring prices down.