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CHINA TO LOSE MORE FROM PROLONGED JBS MEAT PLANT SHUTDOWN
- By The Financial District
- Jun 3, 2021
- 2 min read
A prolonged shutdown at global meat supplier JBS SA could hit China the hardest as the country is the world’s biggest beef buyer and accounts for almost a third of the producer’s export revenue, Jasmine Ng, Shuping Niu, Sybilla Gross, and James Thornhill reported for Bloomberg News reported.
China is also an important market for beef shipments from Australia, where a devastating cyberattack has halted JBS slaughterhouses since the weekend, along with all its plants in the US and at least one in Canada.
Beef prices in China are already near a record, and any lengthy supply disruption could push up prices even more and stoke food inflation fears.
Sao Paulo-based JBS owns facilities in 20 countries. The company is the biggest meat and food processor in Australia and its Dinmore facility is the largest beef plant in the southern hemisphere.
In the US, JBS plants account for almost a quarter of American beef supplies. Prices may extend gains on any supply disruptions from JBS cyberattack
JBS, the world’s largest meat producer, said it’s made “significant” progress to resolve the attack and will have most facilities operational on Wednesday. It’s still unclear which plants will come back, and there’s a chance some places may face meat shortages and rising retail prices.
Operations at the Longford plant in Australia’s Tasmania state are set to resume on Friday.
“It’s going to certainly put a hiccup in the system with JBS being taken out for any length of time because they are such a major player,” Matt Journeaux, the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union’s Queensland branch secretary, said by phone.
“Once that product becomes unavailable in the international market, it will have an impact for sure.”
While Beijing has banned products from several Australian abattoirs amid rising bilateral political tensions, JBS remains the top supplier of beef to China. On a global basis, Asia is the destination for about half of JBS’s exports, with China accounting for about 31%, Japan for 11% and South Korea for around 8%.
