Brazil Stock Guide — Gilberto Tomazoni, global CEO of JBS, said Brazilian agribusiness is entering a different growth cycle from the one that defined the past 25 years, as demographic shifts, changing consumption patterns and the rapid adoption of GLP-1 drugs reshape global food demand.
Speaking at the Bradesco BBI Agro Summit, Tomazoni said Brazil cannot expect another demand shock comparable to the one generated by China over the past few decades and will increasingly need to capture more value from its agricultural production at home.
“There is no second China,” Tomazoni said while discussing the outlook for the sector. China’s economic rise was one of the main forces behind the expansion of Brazilian agribusiness, combining rapid urbanization, rising incomes and a major dietary shift among hundreds of millions of consumers toward higher consumption of animal protein.
According to Tomazoni, a transformation of that scale is unlikely to be repeated. That means future growth may depend less on simply expanding agricultural commodity exports and increasingly on converting grains into higher-value products before they leave Brazil.
Tomazoni pointed to corn, poultry and eggs among the value chains that could gain relevance in this new environment.
His comments come as JBS itself has been increasing its exposure to processed foods, branded products and higher-value proteins, a strategy that also helps reduce its dependence on commodity cycles.
GLP-1 enters the equation
Tomazoni, who wore sunglasses at the summit following recent surgery, said also highlighted the rise of GLP-1 drugs — a class of treatments widely used for diabetes and obesity — as one of the forces likely to reshape global food consumption.
He said the combination of demographic change and increasing use of these medicines will affect demand, creating a markedly different environment over the next five, 10 and 20 years from the one that supported Brazil’s agricultural expansion over the past quarter-century.
The issue has become increasingly relevant for global food companies as appetite-suppressing drugs become more widely used and potentially change both the amount of food consumers eat and the composition of their diets.
For large protein producers, however, the shift does not necessarily imply a straightforward decline in demand.
It could instead increase the importance of foods with greater nutritional density, higher protein content and greater added value, even as overall calorie consumption changes.
JBS has increasingly pointed to functional nutrition and higher-nutritional-value foods as areas of potential growth for the industry.
Capturing more value in Brazil
Tomazoni’s assessment points to a broader shift in Brazil’s agricultural competitive advantage.
During much of the agricultural supercycle, growth in Brazilian soybean production was closely linked to booming Chinese demand for animal feed. Soybeans grown in Brazil were exported and used to feed animals raised elsewhere.
In the next cycle described by Tomazoni, a larger share of Brazilian grain production could instead be processed domestically into animal protein, biofuels and other higher-value products before reaching final consumers.
That would increase the economic value generated from each tonne of grain produced in Brazil while reducing, at least to some extent, the country’s reliance on a single external engine of demand.
“We will increasingly have to find ways to add value here,” Tomazoni said.
The JBS CEO expects that transition to become more visible over the next few years.
He said the process should already be well under way within five years and could begin accelerating over the next two.
Tomazoni will remain JBS’s global CEO until January 2027, when Wesley Batista Filho is set to take over the company’s executive leadership. Tomazoni will then become vice chairman of the board and a senior adviser to JBS.
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