Community Engagement and Investment

Our Communities

(GRI 413-1)

At JBS, we value the important role we play in the communities where our team members live and work and appreciate the responsibility that comes with being a major employer in many rural areas across the world.

We continue to dedicate ourselves to the well-being of these communities by volunteering our time, donating products, sponsoring local events and teams, and providing gainful employment opportunities. Our flexible approach supports each of our businesses to determine how they can best support their communities. Globally, our initiatives include child education and care, food security, healthcare, housing, and refugee and immigration services. Our operations in countries such as Brazil, Canada, and the United States serve as important gateways for refugees and immigrants from many areas of the world to join local job markets and integrate into the communities in which they live and work.

Globally, our initiatives range from child education and care, to refugee and immigration services, housing, healthcare, food security, and more. We also have a long history of partnering with a wide variety of non-profit organizations in local communities, and each of our facilities encourages its team members to take every opportunity to be active stewards of their community.

Our operations in countries such as Brazil, Canada, and the United States also serve as important gateways for refugees and immigrants from many parts of the world to join local job markets and become integrated into the communities where they live and work.

Case Studies:

J&F Institute

At the company’s corporate headquarters in São Paulo, Brazil, JBS supports the J&F Institute, a business-oriented education center dedicated to empowering young people with the tools and discipline to integrate family, school, business, and community while achieving their dreams of generating prosperity for themselves and society.

The J&F Institute believes that successful businesses regard the growth of individuals in their organizations as the driving force behind business growth and success. These are companies that embed education at the core of their strategy and adopt an unwavering commitment to continuous teaching, training, and personal development.

With this mission, J&F has implemented socio-educational projects that directly align with the central strategy of JBS. This collaboration allows the Institute to adopt an educational model based on a commitment to meeting the needs of people, empowering them for success in business and in life.

The J&F Institute model is built on four core pillars that guide all activities: School, Business, Family, and Community. These pillars serve as the foundation for an ongoing personal transformation of students, whereby the children advance both through business knowledge and practical learning.

The J&F Institute views education as the bedrock of success, providing high-quality education from elementary through high school. Driven by the philosophy of lifelong learning (“growing and learning for life”), we pursue efforts to elevate education to the next level, towards higher education and tangible business opportunities. To date, the J&F Institute has advanced its mission through two major strategic initiatives:

Public School Support; providing direct financial, educational and training support to 170 public schools in Brazil and educational and training opportunities to more than 89,000 students and more than 3,500 teachers since the Institute’s founding.
Basic and Professional Education (Germinare BUSINESS, Germinare TECH, Germinare VET, and Instituto J&F Família); Today, there are more than 1,067 active students, and 497 young people trained, with 84% of J&F Institute graduates currently employed in the job market. Importantly, J&F Institute graduates have increased the per capita income of their families by 81% between 2018 and 2023.

For more information about the J&F Institute, please visit our website

Hometown Strong

In 2020, JBS USA, JBS Canada and Pilgrim’s U.S. launched Hometown Strong, a US$ 100 million initiative to bring strength and stability to the communities where we live and work. Our facility management teams have been working with local leaders and organizations to determine how the funds can best help meet immediate and longer-term community needs. Projects include donating books and computers to underserved children, constructing warehouses for food pantries, funding high school agriculture programs, as well as developing land for playgrounds, community gardens and team member housing. To date, Hometown Strong has invested in over 260 projects, with more initiatives to come. Throughout the global pandemic, our team members and communities have looked to us for reassurance that we can—and will—get through this pandemic. Toward that end, we are excited to provide meaningful investments in projects that will have positive impacts for generations to come.Click here to read more about our Hometown Strong initiative.

Better Futures

As part of our Hometown Strong initiative, JBS USA and Pilgrim’s U.S. are working to build the largest free college tuition program in rural America: Better Futures. Through this program, our team members and their child dependents have the opportunity to pursue their higher education dreams for associate degrees and trade certificates at community and technical colleges— tuition free. We recognize and believe in the transformative power of higher education and the opportunities that come from education, coursework and technical skill training. Better Futures removes a major financial barrier to college attendance and stands to become the largest free college tuition program in rural America. JBS USA and Pilgrim’s advisors will also help team members—many from first-generation American families— navigate the application process, which can be a deterrence to people applying to college for the first time. The Better Futures program provides meaningful investments in the futures of our team members, their families and our communities. Click here to learn more about the Better Futures initiative.

Inclusive Community Economies

The JBS Fund for the Amazon’s Inclusive Community Economies project supports an innovative and replicable model of territorial development based on the traceability and certification of açaí from the Amazonbai cooperative, sustainably managed and produced at the mouth of the Amazon River. It works on optimizing and managing agribusiness processes, expanding production and product mix, and opening up new markets. Investments in education, research, and gender safeguard policies are integral to the cooperative’s development.

Future Fund

Within the JBS Fund for the Amazon project framework, the Future Fund - United Territories for Education Resources Fund - was launched in 2023. This is the first endowment fund aimed at financing Agricultural Family Schools (EFA) and Rural Family Houses (CFR) in the Amazon. The model integrates education into the production chain, incorporating the realities of rural youth life as a learning element for a more continuous and lasting program. The project aligns with Brazil’s endeavor to return national and international attention to the region, where investments in education and sustainability are once again a priority. The initial investment of R$ 1.6 million made by the JBS Fund for the Amazon enabled the structuring of the Future Fund and will contribute to its maintenance for the next three years. It is estimated that by 2027, the fund will raise R$ 60 million.