JBS has agreed a three-year meat supply deal with Alibaba’s Win-Chain, which will see JBS increase its meat exports to the Chinese market.
According to JBS, the agreement could be worth approximately $1.5 billion, and represents the biggest deal ever signed in this sector between Brazil and China. The deal will include beef, poultry and pork products.
China is already one of JBS’ largest export markets, and JBS claims that the deal will significantly strengthen both its B2B and B2C operations in the country. JBS will start supplying Win-Chain within the next 30 days.
As part of the partnership, Win-Chain will provide channel sales, cold chain distribution, commodity brand co-establishment plans and big data support, ensuring that JBS products can enter the Chinese market in an efficient manner.
Renato Costa, chief executive of JBS’ Brazilian beef division said: “This deal will significantly expand our beef business and build further value for the Friboi brand.
“We have developed products based on packaging, cuts and portions specifically designed for the Chinese market.
“Our brands are increasingly being recognised for the high quality and safety of the food we produce, with product traceability and a sustainable production process – issues of increasing importance to consumers – and they will be available across a variety of channels for either corporate customers – retail and food service – or end consumers.”
Earlier this month, JBS invested $12 million to expand production at two of its Brazilian meat production facilities, in order to specifically meet the increased demand from the Chinese market.
This deal is the second meat supply agreement that Win-Chain has signed in the last few days, following the five-year arrangement it signed with Danish pork producer Danish Crown yesterday.
The Danish Crown deal will see the company supply an additional 250 tonnes of pork a week to the Chinese market, which will be produced at Danish Crown’s new processing plant near Shanghai.
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