Why One Hack on One Firm Can Shake Global Meat Supply: QuickTake

In the last three years, a fire, a pandemic and now a cyberattack have disrupted the U.S. meat industry. The common thread between these very different incidents is that they show a highly concentrated market with little margin for error. A ransomware attack on JBS SA, the largest meat producer globally, at the end of May shut nearly a fifth of America’s meat production and idled JBS plants as far afield as Australia and Canada. The disruption raised anew questions of whether the dominance of a few giant companies has undermined resilience in the sector, and comes at a ...