8 ms·

Brazilian Butchers Who Took over the World

118 points by danso 7y ago

consultant-hole 7y ago
Hey, everyone likes a good chez burger.
major505 7y ago
Oh yeah. Easy to that with stolen money from the brasilian tax payer, and a litle help of the corrupt goverment that they laundred money in order to help win the election.
abraCadabstrax 7y ago
A while ago I helped translate an investigative journal piece on the labor practices of this company's supply chain. It left me feeling ill for quite a while. Worth a look: https://reporterbrasil.org.br/2016/09/electroshocks-punching-and-beatings-the-life-of-cows-turned-into-meat-at-jbs/ https://reporterbrasil.org.br/2016/09/electroshocks-punching...
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Yeesh. The face-branding is awful. A lot of the sketchy herding practices (shocking, beating, yelling, etc.) seem inevitable with a big enough operation. The cattle don't know the people, and the people haven't been around cattle enough to know how to act.
klhugo 7y ago
Brazilian politics is complex and dirty. Those interested in understanding a bit more of it I recommend the TV series "The Mechanism". My personal opinion (as a brazilian myself) is that significant progress has been been achieved last 10 years, but we are still quite far from the level of corruption found in developed countries.
- stelonix 7y ago
  Although the series might expose how corruption works in Brazil, keep in mind there's plenty of controversy and (valid, imo) accusations of partisanship in the way the show portrays certain politicians and situations, which even if based in real life, have switched characters and quotes, effectively targeting an specific political party.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Tied for 105th place out of 176 countries in the Corruption Perception Index. And actually getting worse over the past 6 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index (I never liked "Perceptions" in the title, it suggests that a country may have a better score if the population cares less about corruption than other countries).
  - airstrike 7y ago
    And ranked 109th out of 190 countries in the World Bank's Doing Business Index[0], behind Lesotho[1], Kuwait, Vietnam and Bosnia and Herzegovina, to name a few surprises __________ 0. https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings 1. https://www.google.com/search?q=lesotho&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=lesotho&tbm=isch
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      I want to know which countries are the most lopsided between the two indices.
  - lanevorockz 7y ago
    Name has to be perception because after taking Fixed Income and Currency, the business has additional expenses. Large companies track this expenses and business practices, they then classify this as perceived corruption. Because it affects only business, things like the corruption scandal accounted on the article are not accounted.
- 7y ago
dmix 7y ago
> Temer is thought to have only survived by upping budgets to individual lawmakers and making concessions to Brazil’s powerful agribusiness lobby. It’s amazing how much power these agricultural companies have in government. It’s a big problem here in Canada with dairy production and the US with corn, both of which happen to be tied to key political battlegrounds. You rarely hear about them like you do big banks and recently big tech, probably because they have bipartisan support in the high upper tiers. It’s a very dangerous thing politically to stand up against, even if it’s heavily counter to representative interests outside of a few farming communities living off the fat of government protectionism. Which they claim they couldn’t exist without and we benefit because something something “local Canadian jobs” despite heavy automation, massive consolidation to a few mega companies, higher consumer prices, or worse far higher bad ingredients in food because it’s artificially cheap (see corn syrup in everything). I see plenty of regular people in comment sections and Twitter buying into this idea probably with some paid shills from their industry organizations.
chrischen 7y ago
It says 51% of their revenues come from the US, but I only gleamed one US subsidiary (Pilgrim's Pride) that sells poultry. What are the other subsidiaries in the US?
- jfim 7y ago
  You can actually see the list of brands on their corporate website. https://jbssa.com/our-business/beef/brands/ https://jbssa.com/our-business/beef/brands/ https://jbssa.com/our-business/pork/brands/ https://jbssa.com/our-business/pork/brands/ https://www.pilgrims.com/brands/ https://www.pilgrims.com/brands/ I haven't checked their beef products, but the Swift premium brand of pork is pretty common and carried at Costco, for example.
Animats 7y ago
The King Ranch in Texas used to be the biggest beef producer in the US. At peak, they owned most of four counties in Texas and had operations in Australia and (?) Argentina. They were the primary supplier to McDonalds. But they cut back. More oil drilling, fewer cattle.
hugoromano 7y ago
This is an example of plea deals ("delação premiada") gone wrong, as these guys keep going by throwing more money.
vfc1 7y ago
I remember watching in a documentary that many environmental activists in Brazil constantly fear for their lives, as meat companies place hitman on them. The meat industry is a true mafia in Brazil, and in the US they also have huge power. If we have a look at Brasil exports, meat still plays an essential role, as scrolling down, all the squares the same color as poultry meat are also animal products - https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra/#targetText=The%20top%20exports%20of%20Brazil,HS%20(Harmonized%20System)%20classification https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra/#targetText=The%20t.... If you click on those, most of the meat is getting exported to China, Russia (pork meat), the middle east and Japan in general, it's like the EU and the US and Canada almost don't buy it from Brazil.
aitchnyu 7y ago
Waiting for the Indian counterpart to this story. India exported as much (water buffalo) beef as Brazil in 2016, but cattle are considered sacred in places, buffalo can be legally slaughtered, and people get killed over allegations of eating beef.
tarruda 7y ago
I wonder why this article doesn't mention PT (Worker's Party) once, even though it was during PT's government JBS had its meteoric rise. Here's a quote from Joesley's: "Foi no governo do PT para frente. O Lula e o PT institucionalizaram a corrupção. Houve essa criação de núcleos, com divisão de tarefas entre os integrantes, em estados, ministérios, fundos de pensão, bancos, BNDES. O resultado é que hoje o Estado brasileiro está dominado por organizações criminosas. O modelo do PT foi reproduzido por outros partidos" translation: "Lula and PT institutionalized corruption. There was this creation of nuclei, with division of tasks among the members, in states, ministries, pension funds, banks, BNDES. The result is that today the Brazilian state is dominated by criminal organizations. The PT model was reproduced by other parties" (source: https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/lula-pt-institucionalizaram-corrupcao-diz-joesley-21488054 https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/lula-pt-institucionalizaram-...) While PT certainly didn't create corruption in Brazil, it was brought to whole new levels during its government. To anyone interested in why brazilians elected far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, it was mostly due to fear of PT returning to power. This was fear was greatly strengthened by the fact that PT has strong ties to Venezuela's current government (people were afraid that Brazil would become the next Venezuela). Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foro_de_S%C3%A3o_Paulo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foro_de_S%C3%A3o_Paulo While there were better alternatives, Jair Bolsonaro was the only candidate that stood a chance of winning, so most of his votes were anti-PT instead of pro-Bolsonaro.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pnongrata 7y ago
  Probably the "greatest" achievement of the PT government is that many Brazilians now take the word of criminals in plea bargain deals as true narratives for their country. Very sad.
  - tarruda 7y ago
    There are multiple evidences of how PT institutionalized corruption. Joesley's quote was only brought up due to the article's context.
f00zz 7y ago
This company, and others, got a ton of public money, subsidies and tax breaks back in the Workers' Party days, when the country was swimming in oil money. Ostensibly it was an effort to create world players (or "national champions"). All it managed to create was the worst recession in Brazilian history.

118 points by danso 7y ago

Hey, everyone likes a good chez burger.

Oh yeah. Easy to that with stolen money from the brasilian tax payer, and a litle help of the corrupt goverment that they laundred money in order to help win the election.

abraCadabstrax 7y ago

A while ago I helped translate an investigative journal piece on the labor practices of this company's supply chain. It left me feeling ill for quite a while. Worth a look: https://reporterbrasil.org.br/2016/09/electroshocks-punching-and-beatings-the-life-of-cows-turned-into-meat-at-jbs/ https://reporterbrasil.org.br/2016/09/electroshocks-punching...

jessaustin 7y ago
Yeesh. The face-branding is awful. A lot of the sketchy herding practices (shocking, beating, yelling, etc.) seem inevitable with a big enough operation. The cattle don't know the people, and the people haven't been around cattle enough to know how to act.

klhugo 7y ago

Brazilian politics is complex and dirty. Those interested in understanding a bit more of it I recommend the TV series "The Mechanism". My personal opinion (as a brazilian myself) is that significant progress has been been achieved last 10 years, but we are still quite far from the level of corruption found in developed countries.

stelonix 7y ago
Although the series might expose how corruption works in Brazil, keep in mind there's plenty of controversy and (valid, imo) accusations of partisanship in the way the show portrays certain politicians and situations, which even if based in real life, have switched characters and quotes, effectively targeting an specific political party.
Scoundreller 7y ago
Tied for 105th place out of 176 countries in the Corruption Perception Index. And actually getting worse over the past 6 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index (I never liked "Perceptions" in the title, it suggests that a country may have a better score if the population cares less about corruption than other countries).
- airstrike 7y ago
  And ranked 109th out of 190 countries in the World Bank's Doing Business Index[0], behind Lesotho[1], Kuwait, Vietnam and Bosnia and Herzegovina, to name a few surprises __________ 0. https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings 1. https://www.google.com/search?q=lesotho&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=lesotho&tbm=isch
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    I want to know which countries are the most lopsided between the two indices.
- lanevorockz 7y ago
  Name has to be perception because after taking Fixed Income and Currency, the business has additional expenses. Large companies track this expenses and business practices, they then classify this as perceived corruption. Because it affects only business, things like the corruption scandal accounted on the article are not accounted.
7y ago

dmix 7y ago

> Temer is thought to have only survived by upping budgets to individual lawmakers and making concessions to Brazil’s powerful agribusiness lobby. It’s amazing how much power these agricultural companies have in government. It’s a big problem here in Canada with dairy production and the US with corn, both of which happen to be tied to key political battlegrounds. You rarely hear about them like you do big banks and recently big tech, probably because they have bipartisan support in the high upper tiers. It’s a very dangerous thing politically to stand up against, even if it’s heavily counter to representative interests outside of a few farming communities living off the fat of government protectionism. Which they claim they couldn’t exist without and we benefit because something something “local Canadian jobs” despite heavy automation, massive consolidation to a few mega companies, higher consumer prices, or worse far higher bad ingredients in food because it’s artificially cheap (see corn syrup in everything). I see plenty of regular people in comment sections and Twitter buying into this idea probably with some paid shills from their industry organizations.

chrischen 7y ago

It says 51% of their revenues come from the US, but I only gleamed one US subsidiary (Pilgrim's Pride) that sells poultry. What are the other subsidiaries in the US?

jfim 7y ago
You can actually see the list of brands on their corporate website. https://jbssa.com/our-business/beef/brands/ https://jbssa.com/our-business/beef/brands/ https://jbssa.com/our-business/pork/brands/ https://jbssa.com/our-business/pork/brands/ https://www.pilgrims.com/brands/ https://www.pilgrims.com/brands/ I haven't checked their beef products, but the Swift premium brand of pork is pretty common and carried at Costco, for example.

Animats 7y ago

The King Ranch in Texas used to be the biggest beef producer in the US. At peak, they owned most of four counties in Texas and had operations in Australia and (?) Argentina. They were the primary supplier to McDonalds. But they cut back. More oil drilling, fewer cattle.

hugoromano 7y ago

This is an example of plea deals ("delação premiada") gone wrong, as these guys keep going by throwing more money.

vfc1 7y ago

I remember watching in a documentary that many environmental activists in Brazil constantly fear for their lives, as meat companies place hitman on them. The meat industry is a true mafia in Brazil, and in the US they also have huge power. If we have a look at Brasil exports, meat still plays an essential role, as scrolling down, all the squares the same color as poultry meat are also animal products - https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra/#targetText=The%20top%20exports%20of%20Brazil,HS%20(Harmonized%20System)%20classification https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra/#targetText=The%20t.... If you click on those, most of the meat is getting exported to China, Russia (pork meat), the middle east and Japan in general, it's like the EU and the US and Canada almost don't buy it from Brazil.

aitchnyu 7y ago

Waiting for the Indian counterpart to this story. India exported as much (water buffalo) beef as Brazil in 2016, but cattle are considered sacred in places, buffalo can be legally slaughtered, and people get killed over allegations of eating beef.

tarruda 7y ago

I wonder why this article doesn't mention PT (Worker's Party) once, even though it was during PT's government JBS had its meteoric rise. Here's a quote from Joesley's: "Foi no governo do PT para frente. O Lula e o PT institucionalizaram a corrupção. Houve essa criação de núcleos, com divisão de tarefas entre os integrantes, em estados, ministérios, fundos de pensão, bancos, BNDES. O resultado é que hoje o Estado brasileiro está dominado por organizações criminosas. O modelo do PT foi reproduzido por outros partidos" translation: "Lula and PT institutionalized corruption. There was this creation of nuclei, with division of tasks among the members, in states, ministries, pension funds, banks, BNDES. The result is that today the Brazilian state is dominated by criminal organizations. The PT model was reproduced by other parties" (source: https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/lula-pt-institucionalizaram-corrupcao-diz-joesley-21488054 https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/lula-pt-institucionalizaram-...) While PT certainly didn't create corruption in Brazil, it was brought to whole new levels during its government. To anyone interested in why brazilians elected far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, it was mostly due to fear of PT returning to power. This was fear was greatly strengthened by the fact that PT has strong ties to Venezuela's current government (people were afraid that Brazil would become the next Venezuela). Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foro_de_S%C3%A3o_Paulo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foro_de_S%C3%A3o_Paulo While there were better alternatives, Jair Bolsonaro was the only candidate that stood a chance of winning, so most of his votes were anti-PT instead of pro-Bolsonaro.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pnongrata 7y ago
Probably the "greatest" achievement of the PT government is that many Brazilians now take the word of criminals in plea bargain deals as true narratives for their country. Very sad.
- tarruda 7y ago
  There are multiple evidences of how PT institutionalized corruption. Joesley's quote was only brought up due to the article's context.

f00zz 7y ago

This company, and others, got a ton of public money, subsidies and tax breaks back in the Workers' Party days, when the country was swimming in oil money. Ostensibly it was an effort to create world players (or "national champions"). All it managed to create was the worst recession in Brazilian history.