This article first appeared in AG Daily.
Anti-packer company Ban the Batistas has continued its campaign against the JBS brands ahead of an April 26 board vote to reinstate the Batista brothers after insider trading allegations.
Ban the Batistas is calling for a global consumer boycott of the meatpacking giant’s brands in grocery stores worldwide. JBS will vote on April 26 at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in New York City about Joesley and Wesley Batista’s reinstatement.
“Consumers in America and across the world have the purchasing power to reject the corrupt Batista brothers’ brazen attempt to trade previously sleeping on concrete bunks in a Brazilian prison with new, cozy seats on the JBS Board,” stated Kimberly Spell, Executive Director of Ban the Batistas. “With a notorious legacy of lies, bribery, slave labor, deforestation, and a host of other malevolent illegalities, we’re employing the motivator the Batistas care about most – cash – and are calling on consumers worldwide to vote with their dollar and boycott products fueling their illicit conduct.”
The Batista brothers stepped down from executive positions at JBS in 2018 after an alleged bribery of nearly 2,000 politicians came to light.
Even after this cosmetic distancing, JBS has continually faced a series of antitrust cases across the entire U.S. meat industry, scrutiny for its ongoing deforestation practices by U.S. senators, and a recent lawsuit brought by New York State Attorney General Leticia James for greenwashing practices that Ban the Batistas calls “tantamount to fraud.”
JBS plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange later this year — despite opposition from a diverse coalition of U.S. Senators (from Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) to Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the left).
“Giving the Batista brothers a seat at the table on the JBS Board will only fuel their ability to further pillage and plunder America’s financial, agricultural, and consumer communities,” Spell charged. “We hope the people make their voices heard by boycotting their products and implore our financial, regulatory, and legislative leaders to follow suit and ban the Batistas for good,” Spell continued.
As part of the effort, Ban the Batistas also launched a social media campaign to “educate” consumers on avoiding JBS brands.
Ban the Batistas campaign is managed by Kimberly Spell, a senior vice president for consultant firm Actum who served for nearly a decade under New York City’s former Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The former mayor is known for comments mocking farmers, despite later efforts to make amends.
Actum is based in major urban centers, including New York, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Washington, and London, where agriculture is traditionally given lower priority, but JBS is front and center.
“JBS is also attempting to distort global public policy debate about meat consumption,” the U.K. letter also said. “Evidence suggests that at [the climate conference] COP28, JBS campaigned to position meat as ‘sustainable nutrition’ — a position that flies in the face of mainstream science.”
A campaign supported by Ban the Batistas, launched by U.K. lawmakers earlier this year, seemed to pitt meat production as contradictory to sustainability.
