WORLD'S LARGEST MEAT COMPANY TO DEBUT NEW VEGAN MEAT LINE IN US

[Judi Lynn]

New vegan meat brand OZO will debut burgers, grounds, and Italian-style meatballs at retailers nationwide.
by ANNA STAROSTINETSKAYA

MARCH 4, 2020


Starting in April, new brand OZO will debut a variety of plant-based meat products at retailers across the United States. The brand is owned by Planterra Foods—a US-based subsidiary of Brazil’s JBS SA, the world’s largest meat company—and will launch with burgers, grounds (in plain and Mexican-seasoned flavors), and Italian-style meatballs, all made with a blend of pea and rice protein that is fermented with the help of shiitake mushrooms. The product line will be priced between $5.99 to $7.99 and packaged in recyclable containers. “We recognize there are other protein offerings out there, which is why we’re adamant on having strong points of difference in our products,” Planterra Foods CEO Darcey Macken said. “This category needs better tasting food from real ingredients that appeals to the whole family, and we’re confident that OZO products deliver.” To promote the launch, OZO will embark on a nationwide tour starting this spring and through December, with the aim of giving 750,000 customers a taste of the new vegan meat line.

In Brazil, JBS launched the plant-based Incrível (Incredible) Burger under its Seara Alimentos brand last year and opened the Incredible Lab, its plant-based innovation hub, in January. This year, the company will launch five new ready-to-eat products in its plant-based portfolio across Brazil, which include vegan beef and chicken burgers, a breaded chicken snack, beef kibe, and flavored beef. JBS is not the only meat company in Brazil tapping into the global plant-based movement. Last year, Burger King began testing the Rebel Whopper at 58 outlets across Brazil’s capital, São Paulo, made with a plant-based patty supplied by Marfrig Global Foods SA—the world’s largest producer of animal-based hamburgers.

https://vegnews.com/2020/3/world-s-largest-meat-company-to-debut-new-vegan-meat-line-in-us

(Short article, no more at link.)

Who knew the vile Brazilian Batista brothers would be behind this product?

https://abrothersmob.com/usa-tv-fulminates-batista-brothers-due-to-a-us-62-million-given-them-by-trump/

02.07.19 FOOD AND DRUGS FOOD AND FARMING
JBS: The Brazilian butchers who took over the world

If you eat meat, you probably buy products made by one Brazilian company. A company with such power it can openly admit to having bribed more than 1,000 politicians and continue to grow despite scandal after scandal. And you’ve probably never heard of it.

Meat is now the new commodity, controlled by just a handful of gigantic firms which together wield unprecedented control over global food production. The Bureau has been investigating the biggest of all: JBS, a Brazilian company which slaughters a staggering 13 million animals every single day and has annual revenue of $50bn.

When it comes to scandals, you can take your pick — during its rapid rise to become the world’s biggest meatpacker, JBS and its network of subsidiaries have been linked to allegations of high-level corruption, modern-day “slave labour” practices, illegal deforestation, animal welfare violations and major hygiene breaches. In 2017 its holding company agreed to pay one of the biggest fines in global corporate history — $3.2bn — after admitting bribing hundreds of politicians. Yet the company’s products remain on supermarket shelves across the world, and its global dominance only looks set to grow further.

In a two-part investigation published today, the Bureau revealed in partnership with the Guardian and Repórter Brasil that Amazon deforestation and dirty meat are very much part of how JBS has done business. Today we lift the lid on the company itself, and ask: what is the true cost of cheap meat?

More:
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-07-02/jbs-brazilian-butchers-took-over-the-world

Unbelievable!

[Judi Lynn]

1. Brazil's fabulous Batista boys: The meat-mongers whose testimony could end Michel Temer's presidency

The Americas
May 25th 2017 edition
May 25th 2017
BOA VISTA

JOSÉ BATISTA SOBRINHO helped build Brasília. In 1957 his meat business supplied canteens that fed workers constructing Brazil’s modernist capital. Now his two youngest sons, Wesley and Joesley, are bringing the place down. As the bosses of the company their father founded, renamed JBS in his honour, they are at the centre of a scandal that may force a president out of office for the second time in a year (see article).

JBS is the world’s biggest beef exporter. Its revenues rose from 3.9bn reais ($1.8bn) in 2006 to 170bn reais last year, helped by China’s appetite and Brazil’s enthusiasm for national champions. From 2007 to 2015 the development bank, BNDES, injected into Batista enterprises more than 8bn reais in capital and loans. Most of it was to help JBS buy rivals, including American brands like Swift and Pilgrim’s Pride. J&F, the family’s holding company, has diversified into non-meat businesses, including Havaianas, which makes fashionable flip-flops.

As JBS was buying up rivals, the Batistas were buying politicians. The company’s declared campaign donations swelled from 20m reais in 2006 to nearly 400m reais in the election in 2014; in that contest it gave more than any other firm. In the past decade the brothers have bankrolled 1,829 candidates; their largesse helped elect a third of the current congress. Little of it was legal. The Batistas have confessed that almost all the declared cash, plus millions paid under the table, was bribes to politicians specifically to further J&F’s interests.

In the past year the Batistas’ firms have faced five criminal investigations. The latest probes J&F’s dealings with BNDES, which provided finance at the behest of paid-off politicians.

To save their enterprises, and themselves, the brothers approached prosecutors investigating the metastasising bribery scandal centred on Petrobras, the state-run energy company. The bargain they struck was their niftiest deal yet. In exchange for providing evidence of wrongdoing by major political figures—including, possibly, President Michel Temer—they secured near-total immunity. Unlike Marcelo Odebrecht, boss of a construction firm at the heart of the Petrobras allegations, neither Batista will spend a day in jail or under house arrest. Free to leave Brazil, Joesley has already moved to his posh New York flat with his wife, a former television presenter, and their child. He and Wesley each agreed to pay fines of 110m reais, which leaves them both billionaires.

More:
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2017/05/25/brazils-fabulous-batista-boys

[abqtommy]

2. That's interesting since here in the U.S. we already have a well-established meat-substitute

supply chain with many different brand names.

[Judi Lynn]

3. True! They really have been around quite a while, too... n/t