Meatpacking giant JBS wants to expand its footprint in Saudi Arabia with another farm in Qassim

Brazil-based meat giant JBS is mulling a USD 2 bn investment to establish a livestock farm in Qassim, Aleqtisadiah reported last Thursday. The farm could export some of its production to neighboring countries, the news outlet says, citing remarks by JBS Global President of Operations Wesley Batista on the sidelines of WEF in Davos. Information about the timeframe for the potential investment wasn’t disclosed.

The investment has been in the works for a while now: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva headed a delegation to the Kingdom last November to chew over new investments in town. Batista and JBS joined the delegation accompanying Lula. “Every day we become more interested in exploring the possibility of making much more relevant investments than we had been thinking about in the past,” Reuters reported Batista as having said at the time.

Not a stranger: The animal protein processor acquired a plant in Dammam in 2022 and there is another currently under construction in Jeddah, the newswire reported. The Jeddah facility is expected to drive a 4x increase in the company’s processed chicken production to 40k metric tons annually, the newswire reported citing a statement by parent company J&F Investimentos.