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JBS has announced plans to invest BRL 15 billion (approx. $3 billion) in Brazil by 2026 as it expands its operations within the country. The investment is part of a wider programme by JBS’ parent company, J&F Group, and its investment vehicle, J&F Investimentos. JBS’ global CEO Gilberto Tomazoni said: “The J&F Group announced an investment of BRL 38 billion (approx. $7.7 billion) by 2026. I want to say that we at JBS have a dual listing project. If this project is successful, this investment will not be BRL 38 billion, but BRL 50 billion (approx. $10 billion) in Brazil by 2026. Furthermore, there will be 50,000 additional jobs by 2026.” Of this total of new jobs, there will be 20,000 at JBS. This means that the BRL 38 billion investment, which was initially slated across all of its separate business areas, will now rise to BRL 50 billion if JBS completes a dual listing in the US. The announcement was made at the opening of two new value-added product factories in Rolândia, northern Paraná, Brazil. The plants are set on a 257,000-square-metre plot, employing 4,500 staff, and are designed to enable the JBS Seara brand to advance its expansion strategy in value-added products targeting the breaded chicken and sausage markets in particular. Tomazoni continued: "The delivery of the expansion of this complex is very significant for JBS and Seara's businesses in Brazil and worldwide. Not only because it has become one of our most modern production plants, but because it represents another step in the right long-term investment strategy in our multi-protein platform, which is very focused on high-value-added foods. Whatever the product, we want to offer innovation and quality to win over consumer preference." João Campos, CEO of Seara, added: "We are going to expand our sausage production capacity, highlighting the innovation, quality and flavour which sets our products apart. In the long term, we will increase our portfolio and challenge the market to grow with us in this segment as well, as we are already doing with breaded chicken. All of this is thanks to the advanced technology embedded in this plant." With the latest expansion, three production lines are already in operation, two for breaded products and one for sausages, adding 700 new jobs. The plant has the capacity to expand further with seven more breaded product lines and three sausage lines. JBS says this expansion will be rolled out in line with the growth of the business and market demand, and when it occurs, the unit will reach 6,000 employees. The new plant is Seara's most automated in Brazil and one of the most modern JBS plants in the world, compatible with global health and safety standards. The site has the “second largest sausage cooking and smoking oven in the world” and uses robots for production and packaging conveyors, while being equipped for the use of artificial intelligence and cloud data storage. The site was also developed with sustainability in mind, with protocols including rainwater harvesting, use of electric vehicles for internal traffic, generation of solar energy in the parking area and reuse of cellulose waste from the industrial process for transformation into fuel or composting, among other solutions. You may also like to read: