Brazil’s chaos and the billionaire twins, lords of bresaola

by Simone Filippetti

20 June 2017- the article is not recent but has a very interesting follow-up which you can find here.

What links the chaos of Brazil with bresaola, the delicious sliced meat from Valtellina? If the country of Rio de Janeiro is in a climate of civil war, with the army on the streets, a prime minister overwhelmed by scandals and resigning, and the imminent risk of ending up among the ‘rubbish’ countries, one of the many threads of the affair also touches the valleys of Lombardy. The scandal that is bringing Brazil to its knees is called ‘CarWash’, something to make our ‘Tangentopoli’ pale: it is an investigation into the corruption of some 1800 politicians, which has been going on for three years. The chaos exploded in the wake of the revelations by Joesley and Wesley Batista, the world meat emperors, owners of the multinational Jbs. Their shocking truths brought down the fledgling government of Michel Temer, who also ended up under investigation.

Collectors of Ferraris, owners of an Azimut mega-yacht, the two brothers who only travel in Brazil by helicopter, billionaires already at the age of 30, they are also the owners of Rigamonti, the historic salumificio founded in 1913 and the most famous Italian brand of bresaola. Which they like so much, because it is so lean and easy to store and prepare, that it has become a worldwide success. It is a pity, however, that Valtellina alone cannot produce enough bresaola to satisfy world demand.

Where, on the other hand, spaces and cattle farms suitable for becoming bresaola abound is Brazil. And Italy imports Brazilian meat by the bushel (27 thousand tonnes in 2016). Here’s the Batista brothers’ ingenious idea: breed animals in South America and then bring the meat to be matured and processed in Valtellina, where it can thus bear the name bresaola, because a law allows the name to be used, provided at least one stage of the processing has been done in Lombardy. From there, the prized thin slices, which have now become the PGI mark, take their way to tables all over the world. What was missing, however, was a bresaola company: so, six years ago, Jbs bought Rigamonti, so as to control the entire bresaola supply chain. A few months ago, another scandal had broken out, and the two brothers from Rio, once again, were in it up to their necks. Consignments of Brazilian ‘carne fraca’ (weak meat), disguised as additives, had made their way to Europe. The EU had blocked imports and put 21 companies in its sights, including Jbs, but Rigamonti was never interested. A reckless life, that of the two Batista brothers. In 10 years, a family butcher’s shop has become the world’s number one meat processor: a mega-multinational with a $30 billion turnover, the third largest food group in the world after Nestlé and Kraft. All this to the tune of a stratospheric $20 billion in acquisitions worldwide. A meteoric rise: impossible to do it so fast without a little ‘help’. And the ‘little help’ was bribes amounting to hundreds of millions paid by J&F Partecipaoes, the family vault, to parties, politicians, banks and institutions, the two brothers revealed to the magistrates. Former premier Dilma Roussef, who ended up under impeachment, also allegedly received handouts from the two brothers.

Ten years ago, Joesley and Wesley also landed in Italy, one of the many stages of their resistible rise: they went into business with Cremonini and bought 50% of Inalca, the Modenese family’s meat producer. Price: 250 million euros. But within a short time, the South American multinational and the Italian meat ‘king’ came to blows: a war broke out in which the Brazilians accused the Italians of not respecting pacts and of hiding Inalca’s true numbers. The tug-of-war lasts a year and ends in a divorce by mutual consent: Cremonini buys back 50 per cent of his stake. Since then, the two billionaires had somewhat lost track of each other, at least in Italy.

Now the two carnivorous brothers have appeared before magistrates: they have spilled the beans on years of bribery, in exchange for immunity, yet another confirmation of their negotiating skills. Having escaped from Brazil, thanks to the pass, they took refuge in golden exile in New York, in a luxurious flat in Manhattan. While Joesley and Wesley are bamboozling Brazil and abandoning it to its fate, Jbs goes from one scandal to another: after the rotten meat, she has ended up in the crosshairs for her incestuous relations with the Bndes, the Brazilian equivalent of Sace. The bank that finances the export of carioca companies had granted loans to buy companies abroad (the American Pilgrim’s Pride and also the failed takeover of the historic conglomerate, in crisis, Sara Lee): Jbs’s foreign shopping spree is all smelling of doping. The latest shingle, a few weeks ago: a 10 billion reais (just under EUR 3 billion) fine from CVM, the Brazilian Consob, as a tombstone settlement for an old matter dating back to 2002. But, once again, there is a loophole: Jbs will be able to pay the fine in instalments, over 25 years. Meanwhile, who knows what will become of Brazil

We receive from the Consorzio Tutela Bresaola della Valtellina

The piece contains several inaccuracies and imprecisions about our product, which is thus negatively connoted:
-The title and the opening, although expressed in a dubious form, nevertheless call into question the Bresaola della Valtellina PGI, which is instead unrelated to the events in Brazil.
-The passage ‘And Italy in fact imports Brazilian meat by the truckload (27 thousand tonnes in 2016)’ contains misleading data. It cites numbers of all the meat imported from Brazil into our country. Placing it between two passages where bresaola is mentioned makes no sense. In reality, the Brazilian meat used by all the members of our Consortium (and not only by the Rigamonti company) to make Bresaola della Valtellina is about half of the figures you quote. And it corresponds to less than 0.2% of the total amount of beef produced last year by the South American country (9.6 million tonnes). This figure is enough to answer the opening question. Linking the product and the 14 member companies of our Protection Consortium to the ‘Car Wash’ or ‘Carne Fraca’ affair is therefore inappropriate.
-The passage ‘Here is the genius of the Batista brothers: breeding animals in South America and then bringing the meat to be matured and processed in Valtellina, where it can then bear the name bresaola, because a law allows the name to be used, provided at least one stage of the processing was carried out in Lombardy. From there, the prized thin slices, which have now become the PGI mark, take their way to tables all over the world.’ contains several inaccuracies. The import of Brazilian meat suitable for processing into Bresaola della Valtellina into Italy existed long before JBS acquired Rigamonti. Rigamonti, like other producers in the valley, has been buying meat from suppliers in Brazil and other South American and European countries for at least 30 years, in search of the most suitable cuts. The specification for Bresaola della Valtellina IGP is very strict about the quality and characteristics of the meat and requires that the ENTIRE process (and not just a phase) take place in Valtellina (and not in the whole of Lombardy).

Author’s reply

The scandal of Jbs and the Batista brothers has ended up in newspapers all over the world: we have limited ourselves to summarising a story without entering into the merits of Valtellina bresaola, but summarising known news and numbers (which in fact the consortium itself does not deny, but rather confirms). Since Jbs is the owner of the largest Italian bresaola producer, the scandal in Brazil is also of interest, journalistically, to Italy. As for the bad meat in Brazil, the piece in no way associates bresaola with the affair, but merely mentions that Jbs was involved. And finally, with regard to the import of Brazilian meat, the total amount of meat arriving from Brazil was mentioned, as separate data by product was not available. Again, no reference to bresaola per se, but just a number so that the reader has an idea of the phenomenon.

Simone Filippetti