“When people look back in 20 years’ time they will wonder how we were able to pull all of this off,” Wesley Batista told the Harvard Business School in 2014. Looking at the scale of what has been achieved, in the last 10 years it does seem hard to believe. Though founded in 1953 as a family business it has really only taken off as a multinational player of scale under the leadership of the second generation, led by 44-year-old Wesley Batista.

JBS today is the largest protein processor and the second-largest food company in the world. With a turnover of €50bn, it has 230 production facilities in 12 countries worldwide including its Moy Park facility in Northern Ireland, making it the world’s largest beef, poultry and lamb processor and the world’s second-largest pork processor. With over 230,000 employees it has the capacity to process 80,000 head of cattle per day, more than 14m birds per day, 110,000 pigs per day and 100,000 hides per day.

JBS serves more than 300,000 customers in over 150 countries every year

As if that were not enough to demonstrate its scale and might, it serves more than 300,000 customers in over 150 countries every year. With a market capitalisation of almost €9bn, one of its largest shareholders is the Brazilian development bank, BNDES, which owns 22% after investing $4bn in the company over the last decade. The Batista family, the original founders, own a 44% stake through various holding and investment vehicles.

Beef accounts for 32% of its business, with poultry accounting for 22% and pork 16%. It also has a value added and convenience food division that sells hides, toiletries and cleaning products, collagen, metal packaging and biodiesel.

It was the first to consolidate the beef industry in Brazil. It strategy to focus on expansion started with the internationalisation of the company in 2005, when it acquired Swift Armour, in Argentina.

With an IPO in 2007, JBS became the first company in the beef industry to trade its shares on the stock market. This allowed it acquire Swift & Company in the US and Australia, which saw it entering the pork market for the first time.

The path to becoming the largest poultry producer in the world

In 2009, it purchased Pilgrim's Pride, and entered the poultry industry. Three years later, it became the world's largest poultry producer.

In 2013, it expanded its poultry operations in Brazil, through the rental of Tramonto Alimentos assets. It went on to acquire the assets of XL Foods in the US and Canada. It then acquired Seara, cementing it place as the largest poultry processor in the world. In 2014, JBS acquired the poultry business of Tyson Foods in Brazil and Tyson de Mexico.

In 2015, JBS acquired Moy Park, one of Europe's leading prepared food products and poultry producers, with 13 food processing and manufacturing units in the UK, France, Holland and Ireland and over 13,000 employees.

This acquisition was seen as an important step towards JBS's expansion strategy in Europe. Also in that year, JBS acquired Cargill's pork business in the US, making JBS the second-largest pork producer in the US.

And only last week JBS announced it had reached an agreement to acquire U.S.-based ham and bacon producer Plumrose USA for $230m from Danish Crown.

Plans to come to Ireland

Last year, JBS announced its intention to restructure its global operations into two separate entities; JBS Brazil and JBS Foods International. Under the restructure, it was planned to float JBS Foods International on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with the company’s headquarters located in Dublin. However, this plan was put on the back burner after the Brazilian Economic Development Bank (BNDES) vetoed the proposed move.

The restructuring was to reduce JBS’s exposure to the struggling Brazilian economy and gain greater access to the international equity and debt capital markets. The move would also have enhanced JBS’s footprint in the European market.

The news on Thursday this week that JBS has suspended beef production at 33 of 36 plants in Brazil due to embargoes on exports to foreign countries will concern shareholders. While the company has said that the 33 factories would resume production at two third capacity next week, it may put pressure on global beef supplies.

The meat industry is very important to Brazil’s economy with exports of €13bn around the world each year. Exports of beef, chicken, pork and other meat products from Brazil to the EU were valued at €1.6bn last year. In volume terms this is more than half a million tonnes of meat products with 65,000t of it beef.

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