Originally, the largest meat processors were concentrated in the US. However, in the last decade, these processing giants have faced competition from a group of Brazilian companies, including JBS, Brazil Foods and Marfrig. The meat sector in both these countries is highly concentrated.

In the US, four companies – Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef – control 85% of beef processing. Three of those companies, Tyson, Cargill and JBS, also control 37% of US pork production. On top of this, Tyson and JBS control 40% of chicken processing in the US.

In contrast to the US, Europe remains highly fragmented. Vion, the Dutch processor, tried to emulate the US and Brazilian model by acquiring companies in an attempt to dominate the European processing industry. But even at its peak, Vion only had about 6% of the Europe-wide kill.

The beef industry is one of Ireland’s most important indigenous industries. More than 100,000 Irish farms have a beef enterprise. Exporting 90% of production, Ireland is the largest net exporter of beef in the northern hemisphere and the fourth largest beef exporter in the world.

Ireland has 30 export-approved meat processors. While we slaughter 1.6m head of cattle annually, the industry has the capacity to slaughter 3.5m. Three firms – ABP, Dawn Meats and the Kepak Group – process almost 60% of the entire kill. A further four companies – Liffey Meats, Slaney Meats, Kildare Chilling and Dunbia – account for an additional 25%.

JBS SA (Brazil)

JBS is the largest meat processor in the world and had sales of $41.9bn in 2013. Net debt stood at a staggering $11bn at year end. The multi-species processor has a weekly slaughter capacity of 500,000 cattle, 350,000 pigs, 125,000 lambs and 60m chickens.

To put this in context, Ireland slaughtered on average 28,000 cattle per week in 2013. JBS currently employs 185,000 people and operates 300 processing facilities in 22 countries.

Tyson Foods (USA)

Tyson produces approximately one in five pounds of chicken, beef and pork in the US. Sales for Tyson Foods were $34.4bn in 2013, while the company’s net debt at year end was $2.4bn. Tyson has the capacity to slaughter 135,000 head of cattle per week, 41m chickens and 391,000 pigs. Beef sales made up 41% of group revenue while poultry sales were next with 36%. The group employs 115,000 people and buys cattle from 4,000 independent farmers.

Cargill (USA)

Cargill, the world’s largest private company, had revenues of $136.7bn in 2013. The group, which has operations in grain trading, food ingredients, energy and finance, is the third largest beef processor in the US with sales of $20bn. Cargill processes eight million cattle a year, or 154,000 per week.

Brasil Foods (Brazil)

Brasil Foods recorded sales of $13.6bn in 2013 while the company’s net debt stood at $3bn at year end. The group employs 110,000 people across its 49 processing facilities. Poultry made up 32% of sales, while sales of beef and pork made up a combined 9.3%. Last year, the group slaughtered 9.7m cattle and pigs, or 187,000 a week, and 1.8bn chickens, or 35m a week.

Marfrig (Brazil)

Marfrig’s revenues for 2013 were $8.4bn, while net debt was $3.2bn. The group has the daily capacity to process 20,730 cattle, almost 104,000 a week. Marfrig also has a major poultry operation with the capacity to process 3.7m birds a day, or 18.6m per week.

Marfrig owns Northern Irish company Moy Park, which it bought in 2008 for £350m. In the last year, Marfrig has made steps to restructure, selling off its Seara Brazil and Zenda businesses for $2.6bn to rival JBS. In 2014, Marfrig CEO Sergio Rial indicated that it might publicly float Moy Park.

Vion Foods (The Netherlands)

Vion Foods, the Dutch-based processor, tried to dominate the European meat sector in a similar fashion to the US and Brazilian meat processors. After a string of acquisitions, it soon became the largest meat processor in Europe, producing 2.5m tonnes of meat each year. At its peak, Vion had an annual turnover of €9.7bn, employing 26,000 staff. In 2013 it had a turnover of €7bn and employs 6,700 people.

After a huge period of growth, 2011 saw a significant reversal of fortunes for Vion. The company had almost €1bn in bank debt and was caught between rising input costs and dominant retailers across its three key markets. This resulted in the company restructuring and exiting the UK altogether last year.

ABP

Having risen from debts of nearly ¤700m in the 1990s, the Larry Goodman-controlled ABP is once again the largest beef processor in Britain and Ireland, and one of the top three in Europe. It has a capacity to slaughter 30,000 cattle per week.

Goodman, who started in the meat business at the age of 16, initially used other people’s premises to slaughter cattle and export them to the UK and France. In the 1970s and 1980s, ABP’s model of expansion was one of opportunity where processing facilities were acquired from liquidations and firms in trouble.

Through his unique management style, Goodman turned these factories around to become highly profitable operations. His business probably peaked in 1989 although it was to prove a year of mixed fortune for the beef baron. By 1990 things began to spiral out of control for Goodman’s business as shares held in a large agribusiness company crashed and payments from Iraq collapsed.

In the last three years, ABP has made a series of major acquisitions, spending an estimated €100m in beef and lamb processing facilities, returning to its former glory days. Last year, ABP had a 27% share of the Irish beef market, along with 25% of the UK market. ABP slaughters one million cattle across 23 sites in Ireland, the UK and Poland.

ABP’s focus is now on emerging beef markets within the EU. The latest investment by ABP in Poland, thought to be in the region of ¤8.6m, will almost double slaughtering capacity there to 100,000 head per annum. The group has also moved downstream and purchased two feedlot businesses, RWM Foods and Blade Farming, an independent farming company finishing around 16,000 cattle per annum.