November 22, 2014
The Australian pork industry faces a major shake-up following the announcement on Friday that JBS Australia has signed a $1.45 billion agreement to buy the Primo Group.
Primo’s brands include Primo Smallgoods and Hans. It operates five processing plants in Australia and New Zealand, including one in Brisbane, and employs 3000 people.
JBS Australia is the largest fresh meats processor in Australia, specialising in lamb and beef.
It is a division of Brazilian company JBS, the largest meat processing company in the world.
Pork Queensland president John Coward – a former managing director of Kingaroy-based Swickers – told ABC Rural the agreement would bring “international expertise” to the market.
“You can look at that in different ways,” he said.
“It might be a bit of strong domination but it also brings (international) expertise to the field and gives them diversification across Australia.”
Mr Coward said Australia was well-positioned to expand pork sales into the Asian market.
However, he said there would still be competition from other Australian processors for pigs.
“(Pork) producers still have a significant amount of opportunity to market their pigs to other outlets so I don’t think there will be anybody saying this is too strong. There are six other major processors in Australia.”
- External link: ABC Rural
