By Mike Scarcella

Jan 23 (Reuters) - A federal judge said food suppliers, restaurants, caterers and others can band together in antitrust class actions accusing the nation’s largest turkey meat processors of artificially fixing prices and overcharging thousands of buyers.

In a ruling on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Sunil Harjani in Chicago certified two classes of turkey purchasers — food suppliers and indirect commercial purchasers — to sue Butterball, Hormel Foods, Perdue Farms and others for allegedly exchanging competitive information about their operations in a scheme to decrease production while driving up prices.

The two classes each have thousands of members, and the direct purchasers, led by John Gross and Company Inc in Pennsylvania and Maplevale Farms Inc in New York, are seeking more than $1.6 billion in damages, court records show.

Hormel in a statement said it "strongly denies" any wrongdoing and has what is called valid defenses to the allegations.

Butterball declined to comment, and Perdue did not immediately respond to a request for one.

Michael Flannery of Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, a lead attorney for the commercial buyer plaintiffs, in a statement on Thursday said his clients "look forward to proving at trial how they were harmed by turkey producers' conspiracy that put profits above all else."

The class period is January 2010 through December 2016. The indirect purchasers include institutional food providers such as private schools and company cafeterias.

Tyson Foods settled with some plaintiffs, agreeing in 2021 to pay $4.62 million. The direct purchaser plaintiffs said this month that Cargill agreed to pay $32.5 million to resolve claims against it.

Cargill and Tyson both denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

Other judges have approved class actions in related price-fixing litigation against pork, chicken and tuna processors.

The case is In Re Turkey Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 1:19-cv-08318.

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella)