Animal welfare
On December 2, 2010, JBS announced that it would use Arrowsight, a remote video auditing company, to monitor proper sanitation to prevent cross contamination during processing, as well as to monitor their cattle for proper animal welfare practices.[21] Despite this, in July 2018, undercover footage from a Kentucky supplier showed that workers were physically abusing pigs, and that the facility was still using gestation crates.[22]
In August 2024, the USDA found that JBS was using human-grade antibiotics in beef labelled as free from antibiotics, contributing to the human antibiotic resistance crisis.[23]
Environmental standards
In 2019, the Center for Biological Diversity and Food & Water Watch filed a lawsuit against JBS, claiming that it had been violating the Clean Water Act for five years by dumping toxic waste into a Colorado river.[24] In 2020, JBS sought to dismiss the lawsuit, but was rejected by a federal district court.[25]
In March 2021, following evidence from investigative journalist Dom Phillips that linked JBS to illegal deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, JBS pledged that it would take nine years to stop its illegal deforestation and 29 years to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. It was the first global meat company to make such a claim.[26] Despite this, in March 2024, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued JBS USA for violating the state's general business laws on deceptive practices and false advertising, alleging that JBS initiated its "Net Zero by 2040" marketing campaign before even identifying its Scope 3 emissions arising from the full supply chain of meat production.[27][28]
Food safety and quality
On June 24, 2009, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced that JBS Swift Beef Company recalled about 41280 lb of beef products that were exposed to E. coli O157:H7 contamination. By June 30, the recall included over 421000 lb of beef.[29][30]
On December 22, 2010, the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration assessed a $175,000 civil penalty against JBS/Swift for violations of the Packers and Stockyards Act for failing to disclose when missing Fat-O-Meat'er data prevented JBS from calculating the lean percentage of a particular pork carcass or carcasses in a seller's lot, and artificially substituting an undisclosed lean value for carcasses with missing data when calculating carcass-merit payment at some processing plants.[31]
Immigration raids
In December 2006, six Swift & Company meat-packing facilities in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa, and Minnesota were raided by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, resulting in the apprehension of 1,282 undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Laos, Sudan, and Ethiopia. Nearly 200 were criminally charged after a ten-month investigation into identity theft, including Swift & Company HR representatives who had advised illegal immigrants on how to be hired at the company.[32][33]
Labor standards
On November 4, 2010, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ordered JBS Carriers, a subsidiary of JBS, to install electronic on-board recorders on their trucks after a compliance review found "serious violation" of federal work and rest period restrictions.[34]
The JBS facility in Greeley, Colorado came into national focus during the COVID-19 outbreak when at least 50 workers tested positive by April 10, 2020, and two workers died of the disease.[35] By April 14, a third worker died. President Donald Trump referred to the case in the daily White House briefing on April 10.[36] All workers were supposed to be tested during the Easter holidays, with the plant being closed until April 24, 2020. However, when this testing did not occur, a JBS company spokesman announced that workers would be quarantined.[37] The plant reopened after a 9-day closure.[38]
Price-fixing allegations
In 2018, a class-action lawsuit was filed against JBS, along with other major pork producers including Hormel Foods, Seaboard, Smithfield Foods, and Tyson Foods, accusing the companies of conspiring to artificially raise the price of pork via the tech platform Agri Stats, forcing consumers and restaurants to pay inflated prices for pork products.[43] In October 2022, JBS agreed to pay $20 million to settle the lawsuit.[43]
In 2022, JBS agreed to a $52.5 million settlement in a lawsuit that accused JBS, National Beef, Cargill, and Tyson Foods of working together to drive up the price of beef.[44] In 2024, McDonald's sued JBS and the same three other companies along with their subsidiaries for more of this same alleged price fixing.[45]
Relationship with the Trump administration
In 2019, the Trump administration allocated $62.4 million to JBS USA from a fund intended to help U.S. farmers affected by the trade war with China.[46] The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a contract the same year to purchase $22.3 million worth of pork from the company. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Attorney General Jeff Sessions requested the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate a possible case of corruption. There were also indications that JBS benefited from trade tensions with increased sales in China. JBS stated that despite being a foreign company, it supports American farmers by creating job opportunities. In May 2019, Representative Rosa DeLauro claimed that President Donald Trump was unaware of the situation.[47]
In May 2022, the United States House Select Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released a report detailing the relationship between the Trump administration and the meat packing industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report describes the CEO of JBS (along with the CEOs of Tyson and Smithfield) asking the secretary of agriculture, Sonny Perdue, about elevating the need for workers to stay present at work, despite the risk of working in close quarters during the pandemic.[48]
