The world’s biggest pork packer is poised to source additional beef, poultry and pork from the world’s biggest meat packing firm.
Brazil’s JBS announced Monday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Hong Kong-based WH Group for “supply and distribution of fresh beef, poultry and pork to the Chinese market” starting in the first quarter of this year.
Jointly, JBS said, the two companies will offer a portfolio of Friboi- and Seara-branded products in a deal that “could reach three billion reais (C$938 million) in business per year.” Friboi and Seara are JBS’s beef and pork/poultry arms respectively.
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“This agreement reflects the maturity and evolution of our trade relations with China,” Friboi president Renato Costa said in a release.
On top of expanding JBS’ space in the Chinese market with the focus on beef, the company said its “major objective” through the deal is to have “direct access to the consumer through more than 60,000 exclusive WH Group points of sale in the country.”
“It will be an opportunity for us to evolve in our supply chain in an unprecedented business model for JBS,” Costa said.
JBS’s Canadian meat packing holdings, operated by the company’s U.S. arm, include one of Canada’s biggest beef packing plants, at Brooks, Alta. WH Group is best known in North America as the owner of major U.S. pork packer Smithfield Foods. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
