400 jobs retained, $30 million investment planned for value-added, case-ready operation

SOUDERTON, Pa. — JBS USA has announced a pivot for its Souderton beef plant, but a nearly 150-year era in Pennsylvania cattle marketing came to an end Friday, Aug. 14 just the same.

The company announced Aug. 10 it will invest more than $30 million over the next decade to transform the Souderton facility into a dedicated value-added operation, enhancing its case-ready capabilities and its ability to deliver “high-quality, value-added protein products” to customers throughout the Northeast.

At the same time, JBS confirmed its “beef harvesting and processing operations will conclude” this week at the former MOPAC plant, built in 1974 and expanded in 1993 by the former Moyer Packing Company, founded in 1877 by Abraham F. Moyer.

Different kind of investment

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, BusinessPA, United Food and Commercial Workers leadership and local officials were involved in discussions with JBS that led to the plan to pivot rather than close completely.

In the JBS announcement, Pennsylvania Ag Secretary Russell Redding called the investment “a major win for producers,” saying it creates stability for farmers, suppliers, and the broader food and agriculture sector.

Responding to a Farmshine question by email Aug. 11, Redding said alternative processors made inquiries during the past two months, with interest mostly in cold storage and rendering, but that interest faded after consideration of the upgrades that would be required. Keeping Souderton as a cattle harvest plant apparently was not among the viable alternatives that emerged.

“All things considered, having JBS stay and reinvest $30 million is a better outcome for the plant,” Redding stated, adding that keeping the company invested here maintains a connection to the state’s cattle industry. “I feel they will care more about the Pennsylvania beef industry if they are invested in it here.”

That may be the hope for farmers as the plant they have supplied for generations makes its transition. With a substantial beef and dairy industry in the backyard of one of the nation’s largest consumer markets, JBS’s continued investment here may help keep the region’s cattle top-of-mind too.

“This outcome allows us to preserve 400 good-paying jobs, strengthen our case-ready business, and continue serving customers in a key consumer market,” said JBS USA CEO Wesley Batista Filho. This saves nearly one-third of the 1485 impacted jobs reported by the company in June.

What ‘protein products’?

The announcement leaves a word choice question unanswered: What exactly are the “protein products” Souderton will process and package — and where will they come from?

JBS did not describe the new operation as delivering value-added beef. Farmshine has asked whether “protein products” means beef as well as other meats, whether imported proteins are part of the equation, and what other types of protein the term may encompass.

The distinction is worth asking about. JBS is the world’s largest meat company, but it is no longer solely a conventional meat company when it comes to its investments in protein.

In addition to its massive beef, pork and poultry businesses, JBS has invested in cell cultivated protein, acquiring a controlling interest in Spain-based BioTech Foods and investing in commercial-scale cultivated bovine protein production and research.

There is no evidence that cultivated protein is planned for Souderton, and Farmshine has asked JBS to clarify the broader “high-quality protein products” as to beef.

The sourcing question is also significant. Philadelphia is already a major gateway for imported beef, including product from South America. U.S. International Trade Commission DataWeb records show 1.32 billion pounds of fresh, chilled and frozen beef from all exporting countries entered the U.S. for consumption through the Philadelphia Customs District in 2025, double the 2020 volume.

Of this, 214 million pounds entered from Brazil and Argentina, nearly four times the 2020 volume, with Brazil accounting for 175 million pounds and Argentina 39 million.  

JBS itself supplied the first shipment of fresh Brazilian beef through the Port of Philadelphia when U.S. access reopened in 2016.

The company has not indicated what share, if any, of Souderton’s current processing volume involves imported beef or trimmings. The plant has long operated within a cross-border cattle market, routinely harvesting Canadian cattle on Tuesdays, but after Aug. 14, Souderton will no longer turn cattle into beef.

Products to be further processed will arrive from somewhere, making both what they are and where they originate increasingly important, given the company’s ‘value-added protein products’ description that stops short of stating ‘value-added American beef.’

All of this puts a local face on the Aug. 6 overwhelmingly bipartisan Senate Ag Committee vote approving Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s amendment to the Farm Bill package seeking to restore mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (mCOOL) for beef.

Also noteworthy is JBS’s original June 12 announcement that paired the Souderton closure with closure of its Empire Packing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, described similarly as a case-ready, value-added operation.

What happens to the cattle?

Whatever proteins eventually move through the converted Souderton plant, the more immediate question for producers is what happens to the cattle that no longer will.

JBS has said it will keep cattle buyers and buying stations here and that affected production will be absorbed elsewhere in its U.S. network. The closest is Plainwell, Michigan, more than 600 miles from the heart of Pennsylvania’s cattle-feeding operations, raising questions about transportation costs and whether JBS will continue to pull equal weight out of the region.

Future presence on the auction markets is also something to watch as the former MOPAC plant anchored competition in Pennsylvania’s cattle market for generations, extending south into feeder cattle country and influencing the value of market cows and calves from dairy farms in a region far removed from the nation’s largest cattle-feeding and packing centers, yet here on the doorstep of tens of millions of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic consumers.

The region’s other major packer, Cargill in Wyalusing (formerly Taylor Packing), becomes even more important. Fortunately, additional buyers, though smaller, include increased outlets for cattle destined for Halal and other specialty butcher markets serving the diverse New York metropolitan area.

Souderton had single-shift daily harvest capacity of 2000 head, although actual slaughter had reportedly been running as low as 1200 to 1500 amid historically tight national cattle supplies. Pennsylvania, however, is bucking those trends. 

Pennsylvania bucks national trend

Since 2022, Pennsylvania’s total cattle and calves have increased 4.5%; beef cow numbers are up nearly 8% as of Jan. 1, 2026, according to USDA NASS. Pennsylvania’s calf crop also increased as the national calf crop declined. (Fig. 1)

The regional picture is evolving, not shrinking. Pennsylvania’s cattle base is picking up more beef numbers over and above what is being lost in milk cow numbers. New York is currently in dairy herd expansion phase, which means more cull cows and dairy-born calves for the beef chain going forward.

Back in June, Texas cattle market analyst Corbitt Wall observed the national reaction to this closure was muted, then said the words on everyone’s mind here: “I used to live in Pennsylvania, and it’s a big deal to them out there. That MOPAC plant has been a mainstay there for a long, long time.”

The logistics tell a striking story: Cattle that once traveled to Souderton for harvest, processing and distribution may travel hundreds of miles west for harvest, while products destined for further processing travel back east closer to consumers.

Souderton will remain part of the supply chain of the world’s largest meat processor. What is changing is where the cattle go and what comes back through the plant in their place.

We hope it’s real American beef, and we hope it includes beef from cattle raised right here on the doorstep of one of the nation’s largest consumer markets. Otherwise, saving the plant and saving a market for the region’s cattle may prove to be two very different things.

More on JBS

In other JBS news, the global company headquartered in Brazil announced Aug. 11 that current JBS USA CEO Wesley Batista Filho, grandson of the company’s founder, will step up to global CEO effective January 2027, just as its Cultivated Meat Division has expanded with controlling interest in BioTech Foods. JBS is ramping  up operations at their world’s largest cultivated protein plant in Spain, and built the first such plant in Brazil as a model for similar “modernizations” around the world.

“JBS cultivated protein will initially reach consumers in the form of prepared foods, such as hamburgers, sausages, meatballs, with the same quality, safety, flavour and texture as traditional protein. The technology has the potential to produce beef, as well as chicken, pork and fish,” according to the website.