Cargill expands its global protein business

Cargill plans on expanding its global protein business into Colombia with the acquisition of Pollos El Bucanero, one of the country’s leading producers of chicken and processed meat products. This deal marks the company’s first introduction of its global protein business into Colombia that will serve Cargill’s Latin American customers and add around 5,000 employees to its team. 

Pollos Bucanero has more than 30 years of experience and its products are the preferred choice of food service companies and retailers in multiple regions of Colombia. The company works with more than 170 farms across the country to deliver high-quality protein options to its customers. 

Jorge Ivan Duque will serve as general manager of Cargill’s Pollos Bucanero business. He has spent the past 12 years working in the poultry sector in Central America and Colombia. Pollos Bucanero will operate as part of Cargill Protein Latin America, which includes businesses in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. 

Duque stated that Cargill is starting a new stage in Colombia, under the Bucanero brand, which is recognized and preferred by millions of customers across the country. Just like Cargill, this is a family business. The team is confident that this will be a smooth integration and will lead to numerous benefits for the employees, customers and communities. 

Xavier Vargas, president of Cargill Protein Latin America is thrilled to expand operations in Latin America by bringing their protein business to Colombia. Vargas pointed out that as they enter this market, Cargill will bring the experience gained from working in protein across four continents for more than 50 years. This global presence, and extensive work in other regions of Latin America, provides the company a wealth of expertise in quality standards and an understanding of cultural taste differences. The team is looking forward to delivering on the preferences of Colombian consumers and enriching their protein options. 

Bucanero has 5,000 employees, which will bring the number that Cargill employs in Latin America to 35,000 across approximately 200 sites in 14 countries. 

More than simply a food ingredients supplier, Cargill deeply understands the customers’ strategies, consumers, distribution channels and competition. Cargill delivers solutions that help the food industry and beverage manufacturers drive growth through new product innovation and reformulation.  

Cargill helps reduce costs through supply chain and manufacturing process efficiency and managing commodity price risk. Cargill helps the food industry and beverage manufacturing customers create unique products that fill product pipelines and reduce time-to-market by connecting diverse food ingredients supplier capabilities, marketers, research scientists, application experts, risk managers and manufacturing process engineers, and seamlessly delivering these resources to customers.  

As a service and solution-oriented food ingredients supplier, the broad portfolio helps customers address their food product development needs across the spectrum of applications and categories. Cargill helps the customers safely manufacture products every day around the world by reliably originating and distributing grain, oilseeds and other food ingredient commodities and by processing a diverse food ingredients supplier portfolio that spans core and specialty ingredients, ingredient systems and finished food systems.