Marfrig Global Foods, a Brazilian meat processor, has acquired National Beef for $969 million, becoming the second-largest beef processor in the world, after Brazil’s JBS. Marfrig says it will pay for the deal by selling off its Keystone Foods division, which it bought in 2010 for $1.26 billion.
National Beef is the U.S.’s fourth-largest beef processor. After the acquisition is complete, Marfrig says the company will bring in over $13 billion in annual sales. Marfrig executives are reportedly unconcerned about a potential antitrust challenge to the acquisition.
The announcement of the acquisition was met with concern by some ranchers who fear continued monopolization in the beef sector. The Organization for Competitive Markets, a think-tank and policy advocacy group that focuses on agricultural antitrust issues, said in a statement that they are “alarmed” by the acquisition. The group linked the deal to an ongoing battle between independent ranchers and the Department of Agriculture over whether and how to label U.S.-produced beef in supermarkets. Monopolization and U.S. ranchers’ inability to define themselves in the marketplace “will surely guarantee the demise of America’s cattle producers,” the group said.
Today, four meatpackers control over 80 percent of the U.S.’s beef processing sector.