Billionaire Beef Baron warns us not to produce enough to satisfy the protein madness

Digest opened free editor

Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

One of the billionaire brothers behind the world’s largest meat company said that the United States does not produce enough beef to feed the increasing country of protein -rich meals, making it more dependent on imports.

“The United States is facing the highest price of beef in history, and thus the United States needs to import more and more because production is not present to support demand,” said Wesley Batista, whose family was founded and controlled by JBS in Brazil.

The average price of a pound of ground beef increased to a record level of $ 6.32 in American cities in August, an increase of 13 percent last year, according to the Ministry of Labor data.

Despite the sweeping “liberation day” tariff for US President Donald Trump in April, the United States imported 30 percent of beef in the first half of the year, compared to the previous year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Brazilian beef imports increased by 91 percent in the same period, before it fell in August after the United States raised the customs tariff on Brazilian goods from 10 percent to 50 percent.

JBS is a leading beef product in the United States, with nine facilities in the country. The Group’s broader meat and food company in the United States formed half its revenue of $ 77 billion in 2024.

Speaking at the Rothschild Conference for Consumers in London last month, Batista said that the increasing use of GLP-1 weight loss could push the growing demand for protein. GLP-1 users are advised to make sure they eat a lot of protein to keep the muscle density.

“Nobody knows exactly what the effect of these new drugs, OzemPIC or Mounjaro … but there is something that happens because the protein is generally (direction),” said Batista. “In the past … the doctor said that you should not eat eggs too (many), you should not eat a lot of protein. Now is the opposite.”

A survey last year by the International Food Information Council, a non -profit organization funded by industry, found that 71 percent of the respondents were trying to eat more protein, compared to 67 percent in 2023 and 59 percent in 2022.

Batista, who was previously the CEO of JBS and is now sitting on his board of directors, said the definitions do not harm JBS because the work produces the majority of beef in the American market locally.

He added: “Of course, products are still more expensive in some markets, but the demand is still very strong, especially in the United States.”

Larissa Alvarez, an analyst at Financial Services and Trading Stonex, said that the high prices of American beef “are mainly driven by reducing livestock supply, with the smallest herd since the fifties.”

Drought dried up in the American West and the southeast, grazing lands and forced us to livestock breeders to reduce their herds. Also recorded high calves prices pushed livestock to cash instead of raising them.

Alvarez said: “(this) along with the strong local demand in terms of structurally given the high consumption of the individual, because the country is one of the largest consumers in the world.”

It is controlled by Wesley and Josli Batista, whose father founded the company more than 70 years ago, JBS grew from the province’s slaughterhouse to Titan in the global food industry.

The company, which is also the second largest producer of chicken and pork in the United States, has begun to diversify eggs, fish, ready -made meals and plant products in recent years.

The brothers, who have less than half of JBS, have achieved a large majority of their voting rights, a long dream in the United States list by converting the main trading place for JBS from Sao Paulo to New York in June Fierce opposition From environmental activists. Since then, the shares in the SOu Paulo Group increased by 3.5 percent, as it was evaluated by $ 15.9 billion.

Over the past decade, JBS has been involved in Political corruption scandal In her country of origin and she was greatly criticized by the campaigns groups for her alleged contribution to destroying the Amazon rainforest by cultivating livestock.

The company said it is rooting the removal of forests from its supply chains, and Batista said last month that there is a great room for the beef sector in Brazil to become more efficient.

“We work everywhere with farmers … to help them be able to produce more … with the same amount of land, with the same amount of resources,” said Batista. He added that American farmers can produce the same amount of beef with half the size of the herd, such as their counterparts in Brazil, thanks to the superior education and superior nutrition.