MILWAUKEE — A Brazilian meat conglomerate could leap ahead of U.S. producer Tyson Foods Inc. to become the world’s largest meat company with two deals announced Wednesday that would expand its interests in beef, dairy and chicken.
One of the deals would take struggling Texas chicken producer Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. out of bankruptcy court protection, while the other merges Brazilian beef producer JBS SA with Bertin SA, one of Latin America’s largest producers and exporters of milk products, beef and leather.
JBS cemented its status as an international meat conglomerate with its 2007 purchase of Greeley-based Swift & Co. for $225 million. It said the newly minted JBS-Bertin will make it the world’s largest meat producer.
JBS Swift, headquartered in Greeley, where it has beef and lamb processing facilities and sales offices, won’t be impacted by the Pilgrim’s Pride deal, spokesman Chandler Keys said.
“The chickens aren’t in Denver,” Keys said. “Chickens will stay in the South, pork in the Midwest and beef out West.”
Beef and chicken programs are operated separately, Keys said, because they are raised differently, processed differently and are sold differently.
However, Keys said some corporate jobs created by the deal eventually may come to Greeley.
Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said the deals may change the rankings in the meat business but “won’t determine which company is the best.”
