North America·Food and drinkBillionaire beef boss says Americans crave so much tein the country is outpacing its own duction and turning to importsBy Marco Quiroz-GutierrezBy Marco Quiroz-GutierrezReporterMarco Quiroz-GutierrezReporterRole: ReporterMarco Quiroz-Gutierrez is a reporter for Fortune covering general news.SEE FULL BIO Wesley Batista, board member of JBS stands with father and JBS founder Jose Batista Sobrinho on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Wednesday, June 25, 2025.Michael Nagle—Bloomberg via Getty ImagesOne of the billionaire brothers behind the biggest meat-cessing company in the world is worried satisfying America’s insatiable craving for tein.
Wesley Batista, who, with his brother Joesley Batista, controls the $15 billion Brazilian meat-packing behemoth JBS, said the U.S. needs to import more duct from abroad to meet demand. “The U.S.
is facing the highest beef price in history and so the U.S. needs to import more and more because duction is not there to support the demand,” Batista said in remarks reported by the Financial Times.
tein-heavy diets have become so that the macronutrient is showing up in everything from packaged food to Starbucks lattes.
A study by JBS competitor Cargill also found 60% of consumers said they increased their tein in 2024, up from under half who said the same in 2019.
Batista believes the influx of GLP-1 drugs could also be fueling the tein craze. “No one knows exactly what is the impact of these new drugs, Ozempic or Mounjaro . . .
but something is happening because tein overall became [a trend],” Batista said, according to the FT. “In the past . . .
the doctor said you should not eat too [many] eggs, you should not eat too much tein. Now it’s the other way around.” Cattle numbers in the U.S.
are at their lowest since data started being record in the ’70s, according to the USDA.RJ Sangosti—MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images The cattle conundrum Despite being the world’s No.
1 beef ducer, the U.S. has had to turn to runner-up ducer Brazil for a lifeline this year as cattle sizes thinned out.
Even the 10% “Liberation Day” tariff imposed by the Trump administration in April didn’t stop the flow of Brazilian beef. Imports were up 91% in the first half of the year.
To be sure, imports of beef from Brazil started to fall in August after President Donald Trump increased tariffs on the country to a total of 50%, in part because of political disputes.
But other countries such as Australia, with only a 10% tariff stand to gain.
The USDA said beef imports overall for the second half of the year were predicted to increase as well, bringing the total volume of beef imported up 16% higher than the previous year.
Batista, who was previously CEO of JBS and now sits on the board, added JBS was not hit hard from the tariffs because it duces most of its meat for the U.S. market domestically.
JBS is the top ducer of beef in the U.S. and its s started trading on the New York Stock Exchange in June.
JBS’ American made up just under a third of its global sales as of its third fiscal quarter in August. JBS did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for .
Meanwhile, the price of a pound of ground beef has jumped 13% to a record high of $6.32 in U.S. cities as of the available date in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Plummeting cattle supply has not helped. The U.S. had an estimated 28.7 million head of beef cattle as of July, the lowest since data started being collected in 1973.
“Of course ducts are still getting more expensive in some , but demand is still very strong, especially in the US,” added Batista. Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh.
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