From the slaughterhouse to an empire: the story of the Batista brothers and JBS

The business story of the Wesley and Joesley Batista brothers seems straight out of a movie: from a small Brazilian butcher shop to building the world’s largest meat producer, passing through one of the biggest corruption scandals in their country.

The rise

What began as a modest family business in the Brazilian interior became JBS, a giant operating in dozens of countries and processing millions of head of cattle a year. Its aggressive growth model, based on acquisitions, took it to dominate the global protein market.

The fall and the return

In 2017, the brothers found themselves at the center of a bribery scandal that shook Brazilian politics and temporarily sank the company’s value. Years later, the company reorganized and returned to the top, demonstrating the resilience (and the controversy) of an empire that remains key to the world’s food supply.

The key figure

The world’s largest meat producer. The size of an empire born in a butcher shop.