Billionaire beef baron says US not producing enough to satisfy protein craze

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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 has become generally [a trend]Batista said. In the past. The doctor said that you should not eat too [many] Eggs, you should not eat a lot of protein. Now 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.

“[This is] In addition to the strong local demand in terms of structurally, given the high per capita consumption, 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 posts, have achieved a large majority of their voting rights, a long dream in an American list by converting the main trading place for JBS from Sao Paulo to New York in June, and overcame a 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 a political corruption scandal in its country of origin and was severely criticized by the campaign groups for its alleged contribution to the destruction of 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.

The latest Eat-VANCET committee report calls for sustainable meals that have been built mainly around plants, if not completely vegetarian, by reducing red meat once a week, poultry and fish to about twice a week and dairy products once a day. People in high -income countries such as the United States consume several times more than red meat than this diet allows, according to a report presented by a group of 70 food and climate scientists from 35 countries.