(Michael Ciaglo\/Bloomberg)<\/p>\n
\nJune 12, 2026 12:29 PM, EDT
\n | Updated: June 12, 2026 3:51 PM, EDT<\/p>\n
Key Takeaways:![\"Toggle](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/expand.png\" "\\"Toggle")
\nJBS is closing a beef plant in Souderton, Pa., and a value-added facility in Memphis amid pressure on its U.S. beef business.The closures reflect a 75-year low U.S. cattle herd, driven by drought and high costs that have forced ranchers to cull animals, the company said.JBS will shift production to other plants as meatpackers, including Tyson Foods and Cargill, cut capacity to align with reduced cattle supplies. <\/p>\n
JBS NV is closing a beef plant in Pennsylvania, in the latest sign of pressures meatpackers are facing amid a severe U.S. cattle shortage<\/a>.<\/p>\n In addition to the beef production facility in Souderton, Pa., the world\u2019s largest meat supplier also said it is closing a value-added facility in Memphis, Tenn., that packages various proteins. The closures come as the company last month said it faced widening losses in its U.S. beef unit.\n \t \t\t<\/p>\n The U.S. cattle herd is at a 75-year low, as ranchers wrestling with drought and high production costs have had to cull more animals. Dryness, which is deepening again, is poised to further delay the process of rebuilding herds, Wesley Batista Filho, chief executive officer of JBS USA, said during a May conference call.<\/p>\n The return of the\u00a0parasitic New World screwworm<\/a>\u00a0in Texas is also raising uncertainty for the industry, potentially delaying a rebuild of the U.S. herd and the resumption of live cattle shipments from Mexico to the U.S.\n \t\t<\/p>\n The outlook for that trade, which has been largely halted since late 2024, has become more complicated, making capacity reductions \u201cthe most likely mechanism for industry rebalancing,\u201d said Citi Research analysts Renata Cabral and Luis Felipe Terzariol.<\/p>\n \u201cJBS has now moved faster than we expected,\u201d the analysts wrote in a June 12 note. \u201cFor a company that has historically maintained its U.S. beef footprint through prior cattle cycles, today\u2019s announcement underscores the exceptional nature of the current environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Production from the affected JBS facilities will be shifted to other plants, the company said. The Souderton plant has more than 1,700 employees and a daily slaughter capacity of about 2,000 head of cattle, making it one of the biggest plants on the East Coast. The Citi analysts estimate that the facility represents about 8% of JBS\u2019s beef processing capacity in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n JBS\u2019s closure is the latest move from meatpackers to maximize efficiency and reduce capacity in line with lower cattle supplies. JBS late last year already said it would shut a facility in California. Peers Tyson Foods Inc. and Cargill Inc. have also closed plants in Nebraska<\/a> and Milwaukee, respectively. A measure of beef processing margins from HedgersEdge has been largely negative for the last year and a half, even as record consumer prices have drawn antitrust scrutiny from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n TT Top 100 Logistics Companies<\/p>\n The largest 3PLs in North America continued to face volatile business conditions last year, from compressed margins to tariff-driven supply chain upheaval. Read more<\/a><\/p>\n Beef profits, initially expected to recover in the second half of 2027, are now more likely to occur in fiscal year 2028, Barclays analysts said.<\/p>\n JBS said the June 12 actions are part of a broader strategy to modernize operations, and its investments in facilities in other states \u201care focused on growing our prepared foods and value-added capabilities, modernizing operations, and enhancing the company\u2019s ability to serve customers,\u201d according to a statement.<\/p>\n Production from the affected JBS facilities will be shifted to other plants, the company said. The Souderton plant has more than 1,700 employees and a daily slaughter capacity of about 2,000 head of cattle, making it one of the biggest plant on the East Coast.<\/p>\n JBS shares rose as much as 2.9% on JUne 12 to the highest price in two weeks.<\/p>\n JBS USA ranks No. 68 on the\u00a0Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers<\/a>\u00a0in North America and No. 10 among\u00a0agriculture\/food processing carriers<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Michael Ciaglo\/Bloomberg) June 12, 2026 12:29 PM, EDT | Updated: June 12, 2026 3:51 PM, EDT Key Takeaways:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2470,26168,95184,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-217828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-agriculture","tag-beef","tag-jbs","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"TT](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Log100-300.jpg.webp\"\/)
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