Investing In Positive Social Change

In March 2017, JBS USA entered into a strategic, long-term partnership with Colorado State University (CSU) that included a $12.5 million investment toward construction of the JBS Global Food and Innovation Center in Honor of Gary & Kay Smith, and educational programming for JBS USA and Pilgrim’s team members. On April 9, 2019, the $20 million state-of-the-art facility opened on the CSU campus.

For JBS USA, the partnership with CSU serves as a long-term investment in the competitiveness of food and farming in the state of Colorado, across the United States and around the world. The JBS Global Food Innovation Center enables CSU to expand as a source of innovation and discovery in the food industry and prepare future leaders to take on the challenges of tomorrow. The 36,000-square-foot center will be a hub for cutting-edge global innovations in new product development, culinary research, food science, food safety, and animal welfare.

In line with Pilgrim’s Mexico’s values and dedication to supporting Mexican families, the company sponsored and invited all team members to participate in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 Teletón Campaign. The Teletón Campaign is an annual, 24-plus-hour television and radio broadcast dedicated to raising money for children with disabilities, autism or cancer, and for the families that support them. The Teletón Foundation, which puts on the event each year, is the world’s largest private medical unit and rehabilitation center for children. The Pilgrim’s Mexico team and our employees have donated approximately $114,000 each year it has participated in the event. The donations went on to benefit more than 26,000 children annually. Pilgrim’s Mexico also donates chicken to this program every week, which supports meals for hospitalized children.

Helping our team members create a better life is the main goal of the American Dream Program at our beef facility in Cactus, TX. Each week, the facility invites representatives from the Loan Depot mortgage company to assist team members who are interested in homeownership but may not fully understand the home buying process. In 2019, more than 37 Cactus team members were able to purchase their own homes with help from the American Dream Program.

JBS USA Pork and its producer partners teamed up to provide over 50,000 pounds of pork and donate $10,000 as part of the annual Hams Across America program. The 200,000 servings of pork were distributed by Food Bank of the Rockies, the largest hunger relief organization in Colorado, providing food and supplies to more than 700 hunger-relief programs. The organization also used the donated funds to purchase additional pork products for their clients. In total, JBS USA Pork donated over one million meals and hundreds of volunteer hours in 2019 to help those in need.

JBS is a long term, Cornerstone Partner of United Way. With our corporate headquarters in Greeley, CO, we champion an annual campaign to support the local community through United Way of Weld County (UWWC) efforts. In 2019, the company raised $406,555, more than twice the original campaign goal. To ensure 100% of team member donations directly benefited the programs, JBS USA covered all administrative and fundraising costs for the resources under UWWC’s management.

The 2019 campaign’s primary focus was to offer local children access to the Colorado Reading Corps, which is a national program implemented to help students build literacy skills and increase reading proficiency. Of the funds raised by the company, $100,000 was donated to fund the Colorado Reading Corps. As a result of JBS USA’s donations, there are 10 fulltime, AmeriCorps trained tutors that offer year-long, daily one-on-one sessions to Weld County students in kindergarten through third grade. The remaining $276,274 raised assisted additional UWWC programs in Youth Success, Household Stability, Older Adults and Healthy Aging and Access to Services, including 2-1-1 Colorado, a confidential and multilingual service connecting people to vital resources across the state.

In Australia, Primo Foods supports Foodbank, an initiative aimed at serving people living with food insecurity, by donating products valued at approximately AUD$390,000. The company also collaborated in the CEO CookOff, another project geared toward vulnerable communities, to provide food to six million people through donations of cash and products. At an event to commemorate the project, the CEO of Primo Foods cooked for 1,400 guests from Sydney’s most impoverished communities. The CEO of Primo Foods was joined by 300 business leaders and 50 of the best chefs in Australia. Throughout the year, JBS’s Australian operations donated 122 tonnes of food and more than AUD$807,000 through various product donations, monetary donations and sponsorships.