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 ( HRL ), 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 ( TSN ) 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.