A meatpacking giant known for labor violations and bribery scandals just went public. Now, small farmers and independent ranchers are worried they’ll be further squeezed out of the market.
JBS, the Brazilian meatpacking conglomerate that’s garnered a reputation for its bribery-related scandals and child labor violations, just had its initial public offering with the New York Stock Exchange — spelling danger for independent ranchers, workers, and consumers across the country.
JBS’s history is one of intense growth, with the company seeking to acquire as many assets as possible and kicking aside legal and ethical concerns along the way. JBS was previously barred from accessing U.S. markets, and Joesley and Wesley Batista, the billionaire brothers behind the company, even served jail time after bribing more than 1,800 Brazilian politicians in exchange for government support.
In April, though, the firm’s bid to go public was approved by the SEC. The approval came through shortly after a subsidiary of JBS, Pilgrim’s Pride, donated a whopping $5 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. JBS also doubled its lobbying spending at the beginning of 2025.
“Is a donation like that a quid pro quo? I'm not sure I can be the judge of that, but what I can say is this: This is clearly a company and two billionaire top shareholders who have pleaded guilty and have a clear history of bribery, kickback and corruption schemes,” Chloe Sorvino, a journalist and author who writes about the food industry, told More Perfect Union.
JBS’s IPO makes a bad situation for small farms even worse, given that the U.S. meatpacking industry is already extremely concentrated. According to antitrust guidelines from the Department of Justice, if the top four players in an industry have 20-25% of the market share, it’s considered a highly consolidated industry.
Market concentration in the meatpacking industry dwarfs these numbers.
“In the beef industry, you have 80 to 85% with the top four. In pork you have more than 70% with the top four, and in chicken you have over 60% controlled by the top four, so that pretty much impacts every single worker at these plants, the farmers—any American that is buying meat is impacted by the consolidation,” Sorvino told More Perfect Union.
As a result, smaller operations are unable to develop alternative supply chains for the costly process of slaughtering their livestock. Those who aren’t forced out of the business altogether are left with few options other than to do business with the giants who control the industry.
“The biggest challenge in the production of livestock for meat is the slaughter piece,” independent rancher Mike Callicrate told More Perfect Union.
This is a problem Callicrate has been trying to bring attention to for decades.
“Because we only have three packers today really setting the price – and it’s really only one, the other two follow, in fact all the rest of them follow – we’ve decoupled supply and demand,” Callicrate said at a 1996 cattle conference in South Dakota.
Now, JBS will have more market dominance, and better access to more investors and capital, to fund their acquisitions. It’s more power for the packing companies, and less for the small farmers and ranchers who are already being pushed out of the market.