1 20th Annual Congress of the European Business History

20th Annual Congress of the European Business History Association 2016
1st World Congress on Business History
August 25 - 27, Bergen, Norway
Foreign investment in the South American beef industry (1883-1930)
Andrea Lluch
alluch@conicet.gov.ar
am.lluch@uniandes.edu.co
Introduction
During the first global economy, foreign capital played a prominent role in the export
trades of the primary producing countries. As the nineteenth century advanced,
multinationals searched for new supplies and food commodities with growing urgency
(Jones, 2005). In the case of meat, a drastic change in the international beef trade occurred as
a consequence of the adoption of new technologies for production and transportation (Pinilla
and Aparicio, 2015). Chilling1 meat instead of freezing it, further stimulated South American
exports due to British consumers’ preference for this type of meat (Empire Marketing Board,
1932, p. 14). Between 1909–13 and 1924–28, the global trade in meat doubled in volume.
The expansion in trade volumes modified the center of gravity of the meat trade, which
shifted from Europe and North America to South America and Australasia (Jones, 1929, p.
164).
In order to dominate this trade, British and American companies invested heavily in
South America and established companies there, especially in the Río de la Plata area of
Argentina and Uruguay (see map 1). Argentina’s growth as a beef exporter was particularly
explosive. Although for many years the United States had dominated beef exports, from 1908
onwards these fell off sharply (Mc Fall, 1927), and Argentine exports began to soar at around
the same time (White, 1945). By the end of WWI, the country had become the world’s
leading meat exporter (Tables 1 and 2) and South America had almost achieved a monopoly
of world markets, constituting 75 percent of the global meat trade (Argentina alone
represented 58 percent and Uruguay 11 percent). By the 1930s, meat exports represented 16
percent of Argentine exports by value. 2
Four important features characterized the Río de la Plata meat industry. First, it was
largely controlled by foreign companies. Second, the United Kingdom purchased about 90
percent of the total output. This meant that, during the period analyzed here, the sector had no
alternative foreign market for high-grade meat.3 Third, the meatpacking industry in the Río
de la Plata area was concentrated and oligopolistic. Finally, packers in Argentina and
Uruguay (although not in Brazil, where the situation was slightly different) did not invest in
land and were neither breeders (criadores) nor fatteners (invernadores, who were generally
1
Chilled beef is transported at a temperature of 29–30°F and arrives ready for immediate consumption.
Cattle slaughtered for export represented barely one-third of the total number slaughtered each year, yet they
accounted for nearly half of the total value (see Lluch, 2015).
3
Frozen beef was exported chiefly to Britain, but also to Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy.
2
1
estancieros, or ranchers) on their own account, although they did tend to form alliances with
the largest estancieros.4
Beyond these well-known peculiarities, the aim of this presentation is to analyze the
main changes in the ownership structure and profile of the beef industry, a sector which has
traditionally been studied as a uniform whole (that is, “the packers”). My intention is to
reveal the degree to which the beef industry structure was transformed over time, not just
because of the increasing market share controlled by the two largest US firms (Swift Co. and
Armour and Co.) from the 1910s onwards but also due to the role of other foreign investors
and the strong impact of mergers, acquisitions, and failures. Furthermore, this is the first
time, at least to my knowledge, that a paper has attempted to undertake an integrative
overview of the meat-producing regions of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, as well as
Patagonia (Argentina and Chile). This is a pioneering (albeit preliminary) contribution given
that, to date, studies have focused exclusively (or mainly) on individual countries.5
The paper contains several key findings. First, it attempts to increase the complexity
of certain historiographical perspectives that suggest that the industry was totally controlled
by companies from the United States (the so-called greatest trust in the world)6 from the early
twentieth century onwards. It does so by highlighting the growing importance of the British
Vestey group (Union Cold Storage Co.) after WWI. By then, this group was a totally
integrated business that controlled every link in the chain of food processing and distribution
from producer to consumer and that by 1925 owned the Blue Star Line, the largest
refrigerated fleet in the world (Perren, 2008). Second, the paper argues that although market
concentration and further consolidation was an identifying feature of the industry—explained
by the need to exploit economies of scale and scope, in line with Chandler (1990)—in South
America, there was an almost total replacement of the business players involved in it. Indeed,
only one company was able to survive from the end of the nineteenth century until 1930:
Sansinena, which was in fact controlled by Argentine capitals associated with the Tornquist
group (although, as I will explore, its share of the export quota decreased significantly over
time). Third, the paper argues that the profile of the industry varied greatly from one
productive area to the next, in line with global history perspectives that promote going
beyond national-centered approaches. In this sense, the study considers that the area where
the South American meat industry was most prevalent was around the Río de la Plata
(Argentina and Uruguay) and particularly in the area surrounding the city of Buenos Aires,
the port at La Plata, and along the banks of the Paraná, Campana, and Zárate rivers. As a
consequence, it claims that from the very early days of the industry, a “Río de la Plata way”
of doing business emerged, which was characterized by high levels of forward vertical
integration on the part of meatpacking firms, and in which financial and marketing capacities
4
In contrast to the United States, the processes associated with the restructuring of the market did not begin
with the displacement of small local slaughterhouses. In addition, the problem of refrigerated vehicles—which
was critical in the US—was not a factor in Argentina, since the principal market was England (and not the city
of Buenos Aires or the rest of the country).
5
This does not imply ignoring the multiple studies on the industry in each of these countries, some of which I
have cited in this paper. In Argentina, the classic studies include Ortiz (1955) and other works I have referred to
here. For a perspective on the world of work and frigoríficos, see Lobato (2001). Gebhardt (2000) provides a
more long-term vision for the Río de la Plata area. References for Brazil and Uruguay have also been included
in the text and bibliography.
6
See Aduddell and Cain (1981), following Edwards Russell’s 1905 study of the meatpacking industry, The
Greatest Trust in the World (New York, 1905).
2
were as important as productive capacities in explaining changing positions within the meat
industry.
Early Developments
The early years of the beef industry in South America were a time of innovation and
experimentation. Charles Tellier is known as the scientist and engineer responsible for the
enabling the first meat cargo to be shipped through the tropics under refrigeration in 1877. He
invented an ammonia-absorption refrigeration machine (patented in 1859) and, in 1867,
produced an ammonia-compression refrigerating plant (Jones, 1929). His first meat-shipping
experiment, according to Bergés (1915), was supported financially by Mr. Francisco Lecocq
of Montevideo, Uruguay. Tellier patented his process in all the countries of Europe, and in
Victoria, Australia, between 1874 and 1878 (Critchell and Raymond, 1912).
However, the first modern frigorífico (meatpacking plant) was built in 1882 in
Argentina with British capital, when George G. Drabble founded the River Plate Fresh Meat
Co. The company began to export mutton and lamb the following year. In 1884, it started to
freeze beef and this trade soon exceeded that of mutton and lamb. This company intended to
expand quickly into Uruguay and set up a plant at Colonia, but the venture did not pay off
and the company dismantled the establishment in 1888.
Two more plants were opened at the same time in Argentina. Eugenio Terrason
constructed a plant at San Nicolás on the Paraná River, which dispatched its first mutton
shipment in 1883. The same year, a firm called Sansinena de Carnes Congeladas was formed
by Argentine capitalists, and its first shipments to England were made to James Nelson and
Sons in 1887. Sansinena soon established an office in Liverpool and another in London in
1888, intending to market its own products. The Sansinena Distributing Syndicate Ltd. soon
owned warehouses and stores and coordinated sales offices in London, Dublin, Glasgow,
Cardiff, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol, Leeds, Hull, Sheffield,
Leicester, Burton, Wolverhampton, and Derby (Critchell and Raymond, 1912, p. 83).
Las Palmas Produce Co. (a branch of the English firm James Nelson and Co.) entered
the business in 1892. This company was registered in England to amalgamate Nelson’s (new)
River Plate Meat Co. and James Nelson and Sons and was registered in Argentina in 1893
(Jones, 1929) (See Figure 2).
Some sources refer to the establishment of another meatpacking plant in 1884: La
Congeladora Argentina, founded by the Argentine Rural Society to export frozen meat. The
capital was $1,000,000 in Argentine paper pesos, and the company made its first shipment of
cattle and sheep in 1885. However, the society shut down its operations over the following
years (Critchell and Raymond, 1912, p. 80).
Almost from its inception, the industry was concentrated in the hands of a few
companies. Within ten years, only three plants survived. The managers of these three largest
firms (Sansinena, River Plate, and Las Palmas) met regularly “to have discussion on the
points of the trade which present themselves to us with regard to the supply and the trade
generally of the country.” (Crossley and Grenhill, 1977, p. 303). In his testimony before the
UK Departmental Committee in 1908, Edward Nelson—managing director of James Nelson
and Sons—denied that the companies agreed to fix prices and argued that it was simply “a
friendly chat” (cited in Hanson 1938, p. 64). However, as the Weddel Review pointed out in
1896, “the comparative regularity of monthly arrivals seems to indicate the existence of some
3
general understanding among shippers to regulate supplies in accordance with probable
requirements.” Indeed, in 1898, the “Shipping Conference” (as the meeting was called) acted
openly when leasing the Terrason Plant for a period of five years during which the plant did
not operate (Bergés, 1915).
This first stage, which spanned almost two decades of the nineteenth century, was
therefore one of experimentation and promotion for the industry. The end of this cycle
(1902–1903) was considered a year of great prosperity for the meat export industry and
coincided with the strengthening of the leadership of three meatpacking firms, which saw a
sharp rise in production (and export) volumes. This process was linked to several external
factors: a productive crisis in Australia, meatpacking strikes in Chicago, and, especially, the
Anglo-Boer War, which triggered cattle exports to South Africa (Hanson, 1938, Liceaga
1952).
With regard to meat production and exporting, in addition to the growing production
and exporting of mutton and frozen beef, beef extract was also produced, an industry sector
that will not be analyzed in this paper. Likewise, from its very start, the industry made the
most of subproducts and exploited them commercially. Although this is another issue that
cannot be explored in this paper, it is one that went beyond matters of production volume
(and value) in that it was crucial for companies to be able to maximize their competitive
capacities (in terms of both production and distribution) and take advantage of economies of
scale and scope.
One final argument I make in this study is that from the beginnings of the industry,
there emerged not only agreements between producers but an entire way of doing business,
which I described above as the “Río de la Plata way”. This operated as follows: in the Río de
la Plata area, frigoríficos brought their stock outright, thus minimizing competition in buying;
shipped using vessels which they chartered or owned; and sold their meat abroad through
their own representatives in Europe (Hanson, 1938).
British and Argentine Dominance of the Industry
Several changes took place in the structure of the South American meat export
business after 1900 (see Figure 3). Beginning with Argentina, in 1900, Britain suspended the
importation of live animals for sanitary reasons. Second, between 1902 and 1905, several
new firms entered the business in the Río de la Plata area: the Smithfield and Argentine Meat
Co. (British capital), La Blanca and Frigorífico Argentino (local capital), and La Plata Cold
Storage (British and South African capital), while Sansinena (a local company) opened a new
plant (Cuatreros). Meanwhile, La Frigorífica Uruguaya was formed in neighboring Uruguay
in 1902. The promoter was a Uruguayan financier and its first shipment of frozen meat was
dispatched to London in 1905 (Critchell and Raymond, 1912, p. 89).
The arrival of new players promoted a certain level of competition. The immediate
reaction on the part of the managers of the oldest frigoríficos was a desire to include the new
enterprises in their “friendly chats.” As explained by several authors, the main business of the
packers was to buy cattle ready for the kill and sell the meat harvested from these animals,
with the margin between these two prices being the key to profitability. In other words, the
aim was to buy as low as possible and sell as high as possible. Another critical point in this
business was transportation, which was directly associated with the availability of
refrigerated hulls for shipments to Britain and led to a series of agreements for the partition of
4
shipping facilities. These agreements, according to Smith (1969), amounted to an
apportionment of the British market, but the industry’s real power was exercised in
Argentina, where the packers enjoyed a buyer’s monopoly.
The American Beef Trust in South America
A new (and third) development phase in the meatpacking industry began with the
entry of US firms into Argentina. In 1907, Swift and Co., the largest US meatpacker, bought
out the largest plant in Argentina, the meat lockers of La Plata Cold Storage Co. The second
step in the US penetration of the market was the purchase of the Argentine meatpacking plant
La Blanca by the National Packing Company Co., later jointly controlled by Armour and Co.
and Morris and Co. 7 The locally owned Frigorífico Argentino closed down for several
months in 1913, and when it resumed its operations in 1914, it did so under the name of
Frigorífico Argentino Central, having been leased for three years to Sulzberger and Sons Co.
This plant was later operated by Frigorífico Wilson de la Argentina, a subsidiary of Wilson
and Co.8
The US companies entered South America by purchasing existing tidewater plants
which they improved and enlarged. These plants were served by a dense network of railroads
that radiated out from the area (Crossley, 1976, p. 73). With the exception of the Cudahy
Packing Co., all the largest US meatpackers invested in South America (making Argentina
the main destination for their investments) (Wilkins, 1974).
Swift also moved quickly to Patagonia, where it bought the New Patagonia Meat
Preserving and Cold Storage Ltd. plant for freezing mutton, which has been founded in 1909
in Río Gallegos. Swift later built a new plant at San Julián, also in what was then Santa Cruz
National Territory. These plants operated using different methods and functioned only
between April and December.9 In Chilean Patagonia, there were other small establishments in
which British capital was involved, such as the freezing plant in Río Seco, which opened in
1905 on the Magellan Strait, ten miles east of Punta Arenas, Chile. The owners were the
South American Export Syndicate, in which Houlders Brothers and Birt and Co. were
important investors. In addition, at the end of 1906, according to Critchell and Raymond
(1912), a number of ranch owners and merchants erected a freezing works at Puerto Sara
(San Gregorio, 60 miles east of the Río Seco works), creating the Compañía Frigorífica de
Patagonia, the head office of which was in Punta Arenas, Chile.
The arrival of US companies provoked fears about their business methods.10 These
companies arrived in South America fresh from the investigation by the Bureau of
Corporations in 1904, the unsuccessful prosecution for violation of the antitrust law in 1905–
1906, and the 1906 scandals following the publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and the
7
The National Packing Company was a combination of Swift, Morris, and Armour. When the company was
liquidated in 1912 to avoid a civil suit, Swift withdrew from La Blanca and it became the property of Armour
and Morris.
8
Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Meatpacking Industry. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.,
1919–1920.
9
Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Meatpacking Industry. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.,
1919–1920.
10
Regarding the US experience, Yeager (1981, p. 236) proposed that the pools formed during the 1890s worked
better because the strategy they pursued to solve the problems of marketing perishable fresh meat produced an
integrated, consolidated enterprise that purchased, produced, transported, and sold its own products. The
building of an entire system raised barriers to entry.
5
Neill-Reynolds Report (Hanson, 1938, p. 144). But instead of certain overly simple images
these circumstances often conjure up, the arrival of US meatpacking companies was part of a
more global process that had begun in Argentina, but then spread to Uruguay and Brazil and
also reached Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
This international expansion enabled the US beef trust, which was under pressure
from antitrust investigations in the United States, to solve two of its problems.11 First, they
could continue to dominate the chilled beef trade with the United Kingdom. This is
significant because, at the time, available domestic surplus for export was diminishing.
Second, and more importantly, Argentine beef had become competitive on international
markets because US production costs had risen (Wilkins, 1974). By the beginning of the
twentieth century, Argentina was able to produce good-quality beef cattle more cheaply than
any other country. Major factors in this were the country’s mild climate, the extensive
farming system, low labor costs, and low taxes (White, 1945).
Indeed, in 1905, the quantity of Argentine beef arriving in the United Kingdom
exceeded that of US breeders for the first time (Table 3). The migration of US firms to
Argentina (and later to South America in general) was a defensive strategy. US packers
already faced competition in the British market over the industry’s most profitable product:
chilled beef. As a result, this paper also argues that US firms expanded Argentine chilled beef
exports but by no means initiated these, as has been traditionally postulated by Latin
American historiography.
I base this claim on several contemporary sources that indicate that from 1900
onwards, the British-owned River Plate Fresh Meat Co. perfected the technique of producing
chilled meat and sent its first shipment to Great Britain in 1902 (Ministerio de Agricultura,
1922). It is not especially surprising that this was the firm that perfected chilling in Argentina
as its strategy had been to pursue backward integration so as to control the business from the
processing stage in the Río de la Plata area, transatlantic shipment and transportation, right up
to wholesale and retail trade in England. The statistics available from the Weddel Report
indicate that in 1906 and 1907, imports of chilled beef from Argentina reached almost
500,000 “quarters” and already accounted for almost 25 percent of the United Kingdom’s
total meat imports (see Tables1 and 2). As a result, Argentina became the first country to
export both frozen and chilled meat, and there were firms that handled both products (Perren,
1978).
To fully comprehend the dynamic behind this ongoing specialization in the
production of chilled beef, it should be pointed out that it was necessary to restructure cattleraising operations and fatten them on artificial pastures such as alfalfa, a process that
unfolded in parallel with new investments in meat processing (and in appropriate
transportation). In this sense, by demanding higher-quality cattle, meatpackers encouraged
these transformations but did not actually set them off. In contrast to what took place in
Brazil (and to a lesser degree in Uruguay), Argentine ranchers invested in improving the
genetics of their cattle: “the development of this chilled beef business has been a great factor
in the development of the Argentine trade, and was rendered possible by the improvement in
cattle stocks in Argentina, which enterprising estancieros have been carrying out for some
years.” (White, 1945; Jones, 1929; Giberti, 1981).
11
For more on this process, see Dewey (1990) and Yeager (1981), among other authors.
6
The onset of chilled beef exports also brought about deep changes in the cattle-raising
business in Argentina, since it promoted two main kinds of cattle for slaughter: a) the
chillers, or top-grade calves, which had usually been fattened in special alfalfa pastures and
b) the freezers, which were sometimes fattened and sometimes not. While the separation
between breeders and fatteners was not rigid or absolute, it was contingent upon the trade in
chilled beef, the most profitable part of the industry.12
Meat Wars and the International Meat Pool
In 1909, the quantities exported (in quarters) by the main meatpacking plants were:
Table 4 here
This table reveals another issue that is often ignored in analyses of the sector and
which concerns the range of export profiles for the different types of products (and subproducts) that each frigorífico produced. It is worth drawing attention once again to the fact
that that the tonnage of chilled beef exported by the British firms River Plate Fresh and
Smithfield in 1909 were significant, even though Swift (La Plata Cold Storage) was clearly
the leading firm in the sector. This fact allows me to outline an argument that I will return to
later and which concerns the need to avoid adopting a perspective that overlooks the
differences in the scales and export product specialization of each firm (in terms of the
difference between chilled and frozen meat and also between mutton and lamb as well as
beef, as these southern areas continue to be important, especially for meatpackers located in
the south of Argentina and, to a lesser degree, Chile).
Market conditions remained tolerable in the Río de la Plata area for the packers until
late 1910, when a period of competition for cattle gave rise to heavy losses (Hanson, 1938).
Swift’s market presence and its desire to expand the export quota assigned to it led to a state
of affairs which is known in Argentina as the first “meat war” (1908–1911). The way out of
the price conflict caused by Swift’s dumping came in the form of an agreement signed in
1911. Pressure from Anglo-Argentine interests played an important part in ending the
confrontation, as a result of their political clout and, particularly, Britain’s control of
maritime transportation.13 The volumes of global exports and weekly shipments was decided
at meetings between the seven export companies. This agreement held for the entire Río de la
Plata area (Argentina and Uruguay) and divided up trade as follows:
Table 5 here
The packers admitted that this agreement regulated shipments from South America to
the UK. In their view, the agreement was: “not only justifiable because it helped to make
more regular the receipts of perishable meats in England, but the arrangement itself, made
necessary by the lack of adequate boat space, was not secret and was countenanced by British
12
Beef for domestic consumption was usually fair to middling quality, and the frigoríficos did not control this
market (Giberti, 1981; Lluch, 2015).
13
British shipping companies—Royal Mail, Pacific Steam, H.W. Nelson, Furness Withy, Houlders, Prince,
McIver, and Houston—controlled the transportation of chilled meat almost entirely. See Gravil (1985) and
Forrester (2014).
7
law. Furthermore, this arrangement is similar to the form of cooperation specifically
permitted by the Webb Bill, which is intended to encourage cooperation in exportation on the
part of competing firms in the United States.”14
The pool arrangements worked, in the sense that there were no reported abrupt
oscillations in the prices of cattle or meat and that packers made good profits. However, in
1913, Armour was completing the expansion of its new plant outside La Plata, relinquished
its interests at La Blanca Co. (controlled by Armour and Morris), and asked for an increase in
its market share (50 or 70 percent, according to different sources).15 The Times reflected how
problematic these times were for British companies: “since the rupture of the conference,
both the companies in American hands have so largely increased their shipments of chilled
beef that a rapid and extensive rise in the price of fat cattle in the Argentine has resulted. The
selling price of beef in this country has not been depressed, but owing to the rise in Argentine
costs, it has become impossible to ship chilled beef at a profit, and since chilled beef is the
commodity with which the Anglo-Argentine Companies’ future is bound up, heavy losses are
being incurred.” 16 Indeed, US firms did not enter this second price war seeking selfpreservation but were rather looking for greater control of the Argentine beef export industry.
By then, the US meatpackers’ largest foreign investments were located in Argentina
(Wilkins, 1974).
The Argentine government collected information on the beef industry, consulting a
group of leading politicians and cattle breeders as to the advisability of protective measures.
During this investigation, the US packers maintained that they could pay £13.10s to £14 per
head and sell at a mean annual price of 3½d per lb. without loss, and made a profit at 4d.
They claimed to have better agents in England and argued that they bought a high quality of
stock yielding 770lb of beef, of which 95 percent was exported chilled, against 80 percent of
beef bought by the Anglo-Argentine Co; they also claimed to make greater profits from
subproducts.17
As a direct consequence of this second meat war, US firms now controlled 28 percent
of the world output of frozen and chilled meat and could claim to have eliminated weak
competitors 18 . In this sense, US competitive pressures—and the need for economies of
scale—forced other companies to merge and to rationalize their production. In March 1914,
Las Palmas Produce Co. Ltd. (controlled by James Nelson and Sons) merged with the River
Plate Fresh Meat Co. Ltd. to form the British and Argentine Meat Company Ltd.,19 later
acquired by the Vesteys. Also involved in this operation was the British shipping company
the Royal Mail Steamship Co. Ltd. (Comercio de Carnes, 1923, p. 27; Crossley and
Greenhill, 1977). In this case, Chandler (1990, p. 377) argues that in the Río de la Plata area,
“administrative centralization and rationalization did follow legal consolidation”. After the
two firms consolidated their production facilities and sales forces and revamped their retail
14
See Swift and Co., Analysis and Criticism of Part II of the Commission’s Report. See also statement of Mr.
Colver, Hearings on the Kendrick-Kenyon bills, Part V, p. 125, January 9, 1920.
15
According to some sources, Armour also anticipated the expansion of the US market for Argentine beef.
16
The Times, Special Article, London, Tuesday, June 17, 1913.
17
The Times, Special Article, London, Tuesday, June 17, 1913. See Lluch (2016) for an analysis of failed
attempts to regulate the beef industry in Argentina.
18
The Frigorífico Argentino was closed down and was leased by Sulzberger and Sons in 1913.
19
Nelson’s share in the capital increased to £2 million and the stockholders of the former River Plate Co. were
given a 55 percent stake in the new company.
8
store, profits soon replaced losses, despite continuing investments by American firms
(Crossley and Greenhill, 1977).
This process also reduced the number of non-US companies from five to three: the
British and Argentine Meat Co., the Smithfield and Argentine Meat Co., and Argentineowned Sansinena Co. These surviving companies were efficient, so after this period of strong
competition, US firms looked to cooperation in order to stabilize market shares. Early in
1914, negotiations began for a new pool in the Río de la Plata area, which also included the
new plant that Swift had been operating in Montevideo in 1911–12 (originally named
Frigorífico Uruguayo). The main meetings were held in London but the US firms involved
also discussed the agreement in Chicago. The firms came to a new agreement in June 1914:
Table 6 here
For this agreement, the South American Meat Importers’ Freight Committee (as it
was called in the UK) reserved and allocated the tonnage for the transportation of refrigerated
meat. As stated above, the declared aim of the Committee was “to enable the members to
share the available shipping tonnage and to regulate the arrival of supplies on the UK market,
so that, in view of the perishable nature of chilled beef, the total amounts coming on the
market may, as regards time and quantity of arrivals, be adjusted to the market’s power of
absorption.”20
In this regard, and as Hanson (1938, p. 236) observed, the strategies used in Argentina
by the US packers were not the same as in their home market (i.e. “interconnections with
Banks and financial institutions, ownership or subsidizing of market publications, control of
cattle loan companies, ownership of stockyards with control of packing-house sites and
rendering business, and entry into unrelated lines of business”).21 Nor did the refrigeration
car problem arise in Argentina because the main market was abroad and all packing houses
were built near or on the banks of navigable waterways to facilitate rapid shipments outside
the country (for this reason, cold storage warehouses were not built either). As a
consequence, the most vital factor in structuring this business was “control of refrigerated
ocean tonnage.” This factor explains the establishment of the so-called South American Meat
Importers’ Freight Committee.
What I have described thus far reveals a central facet: meatpacking operations in
Argentina and their ties with foreign markets cannot be comprehended without first
understanding logic of marketing channels and appreciating the importance of controlling
shipments, coordinating the space available for shipments, and carrying out the complex
tasks of distribution at the final destination. As Forrester (2014, p. 92) explains, “the chilled
product (lamb and mutton were always carried frozen) was more expensive to carry,
requiring refrigeration machinery capable of controlling and maintaining specific
temperatures in the insulated hold spaces with air circulation around the carcasses, which
were usually quartered and hung from the ceiling of the chambers rather than the solid stow
used for frozen products.”
20
Board of Trade, Report of the Joint Committee of Enquiry into the Anglo-Argentine Meat Trade, London,
1938, p 17.
21
See Aduddell and Cain (1981).
9
In fact, the coordination of shipments distinguished the Río de la Plata industry from
other new exporters such as Australia or New Zealand. In these areas, rural producers played
a more significant role in meat processing and there were a larger number of frigoríficos.22
As Critchell and Raymond (1912) explained, “continuous supplies have enabled the
Argentine companies to develop distribution pretty well on retail lines, and owing to regular
and continuous imports into Great Britain, the Argentine houses have been able to avoid, to a
great extent, the embarrassing accumulations and temporary scarcities which have so
frequently caused disaster to those engaged in the necessarily more speculative Australasian
trade, in which, unfortunately, there has always been a lack of continuity in supplies” (1912,
p. 101). In this regard, the original “Río de la Plata way” was reinforced by the presence of
US companies.
World War I: Market Intervention, an Age of Prosperity, and the US Expansion into Uruguay
and Brazil
World War I disrupted the meat trade. During the war years, trade toward Great
Britain was controlled and intervened in by the British government, which favored the
operations of some firms more than others, notably Las Palmas Co. During this time, demand
remained high, especially for canned and frozen beef (see Tables 1, 2 and 6).
The operations of US companies were affected, but not catastrophically so. As the
Review of the Frozen Meat Trade (Weddel and Co.) reported, in 1916, the US companies that
were operating Río de la Plata handled 34 percent of the global production of frozen and
chilled meat, up from 28 percent in 1913.23 Furthermore, the dividends of US meatpackers
like Swift, Armour, and La Blanca in 1915 were 28.3 percent, 22.4 percent, and 95.9 percent,
respectively. That same year, the dividends of the British and Argentine Meat and Smithfield
Argentine, both British firms, were 44.5 percent and 43.7 percent, and that of Argentine
meatpacker Sansinena, 25.6 percent.24
There was no lack of investment during this period (see Figures 4 and 5). First, two
meatpacking plants opened in Patagonia (Frigorífico Rio Grande and Frigorífico Armour de
Santa Cruz). There were also other readjustments following the start of operations of the
Frigorífico Argentino in 1914, the new Armour plant in La Plata in 1914–15, and the
establishment of the Anglo South American Meat Co. in 1916, controlled by the Union Cold
Storage Co., which had decided to come to Argentina.25
The war period was thus one of internal readjustments, changes in meatpackers’
productive profiles (in terms of the predominant types of exports at the time), and the
consolidation of US firms in Argentina and beyond. In Uruguay, Swift and Co. expanded its
facilities and Morris and Co. built a new plant in Montevideo named Frigorífico Artigas SA
(See Figure 7) (Jacob, 1979, Bernhard, 1970, Bértola, 1991, among others).
22There
were 25 independent plants in New Zealand and 16 in Australia (Crossley and Grenhill, 1977).
The Economist, June 23, 1917, p. 1149.
24
Alberto J. Escalade (1916). “Estado actual de la ganadería argentina.” Buenos Aires: Imprenta Escoffier,
Caracciolo y Cía., p. 43, also cited in H. Giberti (1981, p. 201).
25
According to Perren (2008) this move was associated with Britain’s 1914 Finance Act: the ensuing high taxes
made the firms tax exiles there. While their business reaped large profits during World War I by supplying meat
to the British army, the Vesteys applied themselves energetically to developing their Argentine packing houses.
23
10
Consequently, the war period was evidently one of prosperity for Argentine and
Uruguayan packing companies, in spite of transportation difficulties, labor troubles, and
adverse conditions in international exchange. As stated the Weddel Report (1917): “the past
year was apparently a very profitable one for most of the Argentine freezing companies, as
much on account of their large Army contracts as on account of the high prices obtained in
the British Market.”
The other significant new factor during World War I was the spread of US interests
into Brazil (Figure 8). The country made its first shipments to Europe in 1914. However, the
low quality of Brazilian meat explains that it was only for the use of the Italian and French
armies. Although this is an issue that merits further exploration, I propose that US companies
were aware of the problems and limitations to the expansion of the meat industry in Brazil
due to the low quality of cattle there, their high relative price, and a series of official
regulations on exports and operating in the domestic market. Despite this, the presence of US
firms in Brazil allowed them to diversify their export profile, focusing particularly on canned
beef, jerk, and other meat products. At around the same time, both Swift and Co. and Armour
and Co. built new factories in Brazil, although their entry strategy had first been to buy
existing plants, just as it had been in Argentina and Uruguay.26
Another difference between operations in Brazil and in the Río de la Plata was that
both companies needed to promote improvements in the quality of cattle in the former, which
meant that they had a greater level of backward integration. Armour, for example, had set up
an area “to institute through this department an active campaign of education among breeders
and to loan them stud animals when necessary, as well as to sell breeding animals practically
at cost prices.”27All the same, it is worth pointing out that US interests were not the only ones
to make landfall in Brazil in the war years: the British group Vestey began operations there at
almost the same time as in Argentina, although initially these were of a smaller scope.
Despite these investments, Brazil’s performance on the global meat market was erratic during
this period, and although the importance of the industry grew, meat was never an especially
significant product within Brazil’s export basket, which sets it apart yet further from
Argentina and Uruguay.
As a result, although World War I marked Brazil’s entry into the global meat market,
it was the Río de la Plata area that consolidated itself as the leading global meat specialist
during this period. This, together with the antitrust investigation in the US and Argentina’s
optimum conditions as a host country (Lanciotti and Lluch, 2015), could explain why in
1918, Swift Co., then the largest world’s largest meat producer, formed an incorporated
Argentine company called Compañía Swift Internacional SAC in order to control its nine
plants in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, and Australia, which it did through five
subsidiaries.28
26SeePasavento(1980),PerinelliNeto(2009),Suzigan
and Szmrecsány (1996), among others.
Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Meatpacking Industry. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.,
1919–1920.
28
This company and its subsidiaries existed until 1950, when it was reorganized. The International Packers
Limited, a Delaware Corporation, took control through an exchange of shares (the transfer of all shares owned
by Swift International Co. to Delsintco Ltd., a Delaware Corporation which was a subsidiary of International
Packers Ltd.). See Swift International SAC, Corporate Records Division, Baker Library, Historical Collections,
Harvard Business School.
27
11
In 1918, the stockholders of Swift and Co. (USA) were given the option of
exchanging 15 percent of their shareholdings at par for shares in the Compañía Swift
Internacional. The capitalization of the latter was 22,500,000 gold pesos, the share having a
par value of 15 gold pesos. By 1919 (and until 1950), Compañía Swift Internacional SAC
owned the entire capital stock of the following companies: 1) Compañía Swift de La Plata
SA, Buenos Aires, operating meat slaughtering and freezing works at the port of La Plata,
Río Gallegos, and San Julián, and a selling and distribution agency in the city of Buenos
Aires; 2) Compañía Swift de Montevideo SA, which operated a meat slaughtering and
freezing works in Cerro and a selling and distributing agency in Montevideo; 3) Companhia
Swift do Brazil SA, which operated a meat slaughtering and freezing works at the port of Rio
Grande do Sul and a sales agency in Rio de Janeiro; 4) Compañía Paraguaya de Frigorífico
de Carnes Conservadas, which ran a canning and dried beef plant on the Paraguay River near
the city of Asunción; and 5) the Australian Meat Export Company Limited, which operated
meat slaughtering and freezing works in Brisbane and Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
The Third Meat War in the Río de la Plata and the Era of Consolidation of the Beef Industry
in South America (1921–1930)
The 1920s were a time of growth and of increased consolidation within the South
American meatpacking industry. It was also a time of growth in Argentine exports of chilled
beef (Tables 1 and 2). As can be seen, Uruguay’s contribution of chilled beef was small while
Brazil’s was nonexistent.
However, several key moments stand out over the course of that decade in the Río de
la Plata, according to Hanson (1938, p. 237): 1) sudden losses following the boom prices of
the war (1920–1921); 2) a period of “normal” functioning of restricted competition under the
River Plate Freight Committee (1922–1924); 3) the third meat war (1925–1927); and 4) from
1928, a return to the pooling agreement, which resulted in the closure or relocation of some
British interests (at least until 1930, which is the period under study in this paper). The other
aspect that characterizes this period is the consolidation of three firms that made significant
investments up to the end of the 1920s (and which explain the boom in chilled beef exports)
in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.
The 1920s also saw significant readjustments to the corporate map. New players
appeared in the Río de la Plata, Swift opened up in the city of Rosario (1924), and other firms
expanded their facilities (Figures 6 and 9).29 In Argentina, the most significant aspect was a
series of mergers and acquisitions linked to the expansion of the Vestey group, which had
arrived in the region in 1916 but waited until this time to expand its operations. To this end,
the company invested in a new plant in Argentina, the Frigorífico Anglo (1925). In parallel, it
expanded into Uruguay, where there were no longer any firms owned by local capital, so it
bought the former British-owned Liebig plant. Meanwhile, in Brazil, it bought three locally
owned frigoríficos.
This state of affairs suggests that, during the 1920s, the most active and competitive
player in the industry was the British group Vestey, which was by then a global, vertically
integrated firm: “this combination now controls nearly a third of the cold storage space and
29
Also established at this time were the Frigorífico Gualeguachú (1923) and the Frigorífico Municipal in the
city of Buenos Aires, but they did not play a part in the export trade.
12
about 2,400 retail meat stores in the Kingdom, many of the large British importing concerns
and refrigerating and slaughtering plants in South America, Australia, New Zealand, China,
and Madagascar, and had works in Russia before the war. Until recently it also owned a fleet
of refrigerated steamers over which it still has control. This combination has more branches
of the industry under one management than do the packers, for it retails meat on a large scale,
partially controls its shipping space and even has considerable ranching property” (Mc Fall,
1927, p. 566).
In Argentina and Uruguay, the frigoríficos controlled by the Anglo group were
expanded and modernized and the less competitive plants were sold off. As a consequence, in
June 1925, Vestey announced to the River Plate Freight Committee that it wanted to expand
its quota to 8.5 percent as it had increased its capacity by 75 percent and modernized its sales
system. In addition, the Smithfield and Argentine Meat Co. argued that it had also
modernized its plant and so demanded a two-thirds increase in its quota. Furthermore, as
stated above, Swift built a new plant in the city of Rosario in 1924. As a result, all three firms
requested quota increases, which led to a third meat war in the Río de la Plata.
The general manager of the Smithfield and Argentine Co. expressed his concern for
the situation clearly in the 1925 Annual Report: “[it is a] fight between the bigger concerns
who ship whatever quantity of meat they like, with the result that prices are too high in the
Argentine and too low here.” He also recognized that from the moment firms were
established in Argentina (in 1904) their share of the trade was “whittled away as new
companies entered and new circumstances arose.” However, he argued that since the
company decided to “put our house in order” they now deserved “our undeniable right to our
fair share of the trade.”30
His words also signal that the struggle in the 1920s was no longer one of US firms
against British ones. Instead, and from here on, it was a competition of large packers against
small ones. 31 Despite financial losses, the price war continued for more than two years. But
as the Weddel Report (1926) commented, US firms encountered an important difference in
circumstances as compared with the previous decade: “this time they find themselves
opposed not by comparatively small concerns which they found an easy prey in pre-war days,
but by a British combination which, with several thousand retail shops, is more favorably
placed to make a stand against being put in an inferior position to its principal competitors”
(p. 5). In October 1927, a new agreement was reached on these terms, as shown in Table 7:
Table 7 here
The pressure to limit competition following the new agreement led to ongoing
mergers and acquisitions in Argentina (the readjustments that took place in Uruguay and
Brazil happened before the start of the third meat war). The reaction of the surviving smaller
companies was to improve their positions by mergers, joint selling, or production
agreements. As part of these changes, in 1927, the River Plate Freight Committee rented the
Las Palmas frigorífico for four years at £90,000 per year and kept it closed. Another change
30
The Times, Saturday, July 11, 1925.
For example, the Vesteys blamed the Smithfield and Argentine Co. for holding out against restoration of
peace in the industry, while the Smithfield and Argentine Co. blamed the Vesteys for having started the trouble.
31
13
came about in July 1928, when the River Plate British and Continental Meat Co. signed an
agreement with Armour and Co.32 As a result of this agreement, Armour and Co. undertook
all technical management. After this contract had been signed, the River Plate Freight
Committee divided the arrangement by giving equal shares to Vestey Brothers, Swift, and
Armour.
Profits and losses varied greatly during the 1920s, and some British firms had
negative performances (which was not the case for the US firms specializing in chilled beef).
Likewise, the only surviving Argentine company, Sansinena, experienced hard times
(although it went ahead with its capitalization strategy) and after the antitrust law was passed
in Argentina33, it even had to temporarily withdraw from the River Plate Freight Committee.
As part of this adjustments, some frigoríficos deployed parallel strategies such as focusing
once more on the domestic market and deepening related productive diversification
processes.34
So, at the end of the period analyzed, all the meatpacking plants involved in the
export business were private, and nearly all were foreign-owned. It was also during this
period that the three largest firms (Swift, Armour, and Vestey) took a large share of business
away from their surviving smaller rivals (See Figure 1). This implied increased concentration
and consolidation within the industry. By 1930, the number of frigoríficos (excluding small
mutton plants in Patagonia) in the Río de la Plata stood at less than a dozen, and their profiles
and production capacities varied greatly, as Table 8 shows.
Table 8 here
As noted above, this consolidation also affected Brazil (Figure 9), which at the end of
the 1920s was seen as “a country of boundless opportunities but which has failed heretofore
to realize its fullest opportunities.” The Weddel Report (1928) endorsed this perspective:
“Brazilian chilled beef has still a long way to go to equal the Argentine standard of quality,
but meets with a fair market in England because of the demand for small quarters.” As a
consequence, Brazil continued to be only a minor player in the global meat market, and its
production and marketing model diverged from that of the Río de la Plata in that it did not
include agreements on shipping quotas.
Final Comments
In this paper, I have presented a range of arguments for rethinking the dynamics of
and changes to the structure of the meatpacking industry in South America up to 1930. I have
32
Morris and the River Plate Co. at Zárate, which had a 6.5 percent quota, was absorbed by Armour when its
plant was rented by Howard George Ganet, secretary of the Shipping Conference, thus expanding the export
quota of the Armour group (Liceaga, 1952). In its December 20, 1928, edition, The Times printed the Annual
Report of the British and Continental Meat Co., where its explained to shareholders that Armour also “guarantee
to the company that profits shall each year be equivalent to the debenture debt interest and redemption
accounts—say £150,000 each year standing upon its own basis.”
33
Discussions over the first drafts for the law “against the action of trusts in livestock production” began in
1909 and were taken up again in 1913. The discussions that began at that point culminated in the passing of the
first antimonopoly law in 1923 (Law 11210). See Lluch (2016).
34
Just as an example, by 1932, a large part of the operations of the largest frigoríficos involved the slaughter
and freezing of poultry, egg production, and the manufacturing of cheeses, cold cuts, and other processed food
products.
14
argued that the first boom in foreign investment involved capital from Britain and countries
in the region (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil), but not from the US. I indicate in the
study that this first boom (including the first exports of frozen meat) predated the arrival of
US capital in Argentina in 1907. However, I have not ignored the fact that US companies
transformed the industry, scaled up chilled meat exports, and expandedinto all productive
zones in the region.
With regard to the global context, the dynamics of the meatpacking industry
responded to the growing geographical specialization in the production and export of
processed meat, which was in turn associated with the availability of new technology and the
rise of large-scale companies within the sector. In this sense, Argentina (in both the Río de la
Plata area and Patagonia) was one of the first places—although not the only one—where
large US firms expanded internationally, which was also true of Uruguay and Brazil from
World War I onward. In this sense, when I have outlined here has been that the arrival of US
capital in the region must be seen within the global context, in that the Río de la Plata area at
the time ranked highest in terms of shipments of chilled beef to the British market, a position
formerly held by the United States. In addition to financial and technical capacities, the
factors that played a part in this process include the conditions on the domestic US market
(due to the increasing consumption and the pressure from antitrust laws) and also the fact that
British firms in Argentina were starting to represent a possible threat to the position of the US
as an exporter of chilled beef to the British market.
I have also examined how cooperation agreements between meatpackers were put in
place early on in the Río de la Plata area, which originated in the division of refrigerated
tonnage. However, the cartels, as seen above, were unstable, and companies competed
oligopolistically for market share during the so-called meat wars. During these price wars,
packers saw how competition eroded profits, and even the largest and most powerful US
meatpacking companies promoted strategies to limit competitive pressures (Levestein, 2012).
Furthermore, although the paper has shown that throughout the period there was
continuity to the predominance of foreign capital and higher levels of concentration and
forward vertical integration, another of its finding has been demonstrating the serious
readjustments that took place within the sector. In fact, I herein propose that the industry as a
whole went through structural changes during these decades, an aspect that some
historiography has neglected (in the sense that these studies stressed Anglo-American
rivalries and changes in export quotas). Similarly, I have signaled the importance of the
British group Vestey, which in 1930, together with Swift and Armour, took a large share of
business away from smaller rivals (as seen in Figure 1). This implied, of course, greater
levels of consolidation within the industry, where the scale of each firm was more important
than its nationality by then.
I further cautioned—albeit briefly—that it is important to include an analysis of the
differences in the productive profiles of meatpackers, as not all had the same slaughter
capacity per product type (or capacity for exploiting subproducts). Even well into the 1910s,
there was a clear geographic specialization among frigoríficos (some of which were owned
by the same companies). For example, I examined the expansion of US capital toward
Patagonia and how this enabled firms to increase the volumes of frozen mutton they
exported. Likewise, the expansion into Brazil (and Paraguay) further diversified the export
basket of companies such as Swift, Armour, and the Union Cold Storage Co. As a result, the
15
multiproduct profile gradually expanded as large meatpacking companies took advantage of
economies of diversification into new products and areas, a process which was consolidated
in the 1920s.
In sum, although deep-rooted historiographical traditions have meant that the
meatpacking sector has tended to be analyzed as a uniform bloc, I have argued in favor of a
far more nuanced approach. For this reason, this paper has sought to draw attention to the fact
that the performances and strategies of meatpacking companies in South America varied
considerably, without ignoring their shared positions vis-à-vis legislative antitrust and
corruption investigations or agreements over market quotas and prices.
16
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19
Map 1
20
Table 1
Imports of Chilled Beef into the UK, 1906-1928 (by number of quarters)
1906
1,456,000
454,613
24%
Totals
including
small
quantities
from other
sources
1,910,613
1907
1,451,000
427,284
23%
1,878,042
1908
859,000
767,284
47%
1,626,284
1909
521,000
1,066,134
67%
1,588,465
1910
286,850
1,593,001
85%
1,883,695
1911
104,300
858
2,151,170
95%
2,257,709
1912
10,400
962
2,220,707
99%
2,232,069
1913
4,800
25,891
2,961,219
99%
2,991,910
1914
6,900
90,736
2,774,286
97%
2,871,922
1915
355,942
201,786
961,112
63%
1,518,840
1916
241,891
146,175
751,456
66%
1,139,522
1917
208,950
61,392
639,268
70%
909,610
1918
23,926
58,469
71%
82,395
1919
1,268
51,550
98%
52,818
1920
37,005
473,812
93%
510,817
Year
North
America
Uruguay,
Brazil,
etc.
%
Argentin
Argentina
a over
total
1921
7,044
167,047
1,709,271
91%
1,883,362
1922
140
483,881
3,032,329
86%
3,516,350
1923
568
392,258
4,207,828
91%
4,600,654
1924
420
330,065
4,820,282
94%
5,150,767
1925
5,494
364,644
4,915,762
93%
5,285,900
1926
426,619
5,353,671
93%
5,770,290
1927
277,551
6,307,878
96%
6,585,429
732,336 5,523,375
88%
6,255,711
1928
Source: Own elaboration from the data provided by W. Weddel & Company Ltd. Forty-First Annual Review of
the Chilled and Frozen Meat Trade (London, 1928).
21
Imports of Chilled Beef into the UK, 1906-1928 (by number of
quarters)
7,000,000
6,000,000
5,000,000
4,000,000
3,000,000
2,000,000
1,000,000
1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928
North America
Uruguay, Brazil, etc.
Argentina
Table 2
Imports of Frozen Beef into the UK, 1906-1928 (by number of quarters)
New
Zealand
Australia
Totals
including
small
quantities
from other
sources
90%
121,858
13,112
1,449,673
78%
220,162
73,117
1,614,389
1,447,365
81%
179,002
75,800
1,788,159
98,717
1,491,368
69%
297,328
268,257
2,155,670
-
148,084
1,336,757
57%
344,048
533,598
2,362,487
1911
-
112,689
1,410,159
64%
165,474
520,073
2,208,395
1912
-
225,419
1,580,644
59%
157,850
732,834
2,696,747
1913
-
345,030
1,060,312
40%
126,750
1,084,832
2,626,924
1914
55,307
456,256
852,612
29%
321,784
1,236,466
2,923,125
1915
214,932
74,239
2,154,254
52%
482,232
1,143,779
4,113,265
1916
327,233
82,178
1,678,583
50%
639,684
591,998
3,346,188
1917
435,528
159,125
848,027
28%
557,146
1,028,888
3,072,464
1918
2,843,40
1
282,545
1,150,523
29%
223,906
210,859
3,978,290
1919
247,432
382,331
2,116,118
57%
310,757
604,643
3,695,025
1920
59,910
727,207
3,120,820
64%
418,002
483,076
4,871,490
1921
25,347
664,741
2,747,049
54%
559,711
1,104,317
5,108,900
1922
296
250,571
1,302,488
50%
316,782
727,547
2,601,726
1923
2,636
294,793
1,381,467
52%
387,549
570,140
2,637,534
1924
1,054
216,931
1,006,901
49%
280,953
559,229
2,065,319
1925
10,373
271,738
610,435
28%
263,280
1,030,714
2,187,484
Year
North
America
Uruguay,
Brazil,
Venezuela,
etc
1906
-
16,265
1,298,438
1907
-
55,671
1,265,439
1908
-
85,992
1909
-
1910
Argentina
22
1926
711
118,562
384,456
25%
267,068
757,880
1,531,196
1927
-
36,015
336,372
34%
131,060
482,016
986,346
1928
-
30,691
102,916
10%
228,433
686,033
1,048,073
Source: Own elaboration from the data provided by W. Weddel & Company Ltd. 1928. Forty-First Annual
Review of the Chilled and Frozen Meat Trade (London, 1928).
Imports of Frozen Beef into the UK, 1906-1928 (by number of
quarters)
3,500,000
3,000,000
2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000
-
1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928
North America
Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, etc
Argentina
Imports of Frozen Beef into the UK,
1906-1928 (by number of quarters)
3,500,000
3,000,000
2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000
-
1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928
North America
Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, etc
Argentina
New Zealand
Australia
23
Table 3
Frozen and Chilled Beef. Progress of Argentine Exports compared with the principal
exporting countries
24
Table 4
Carcasses, Quarters Quarters
Frozen
beef
beef
Muttons
(frozen) (chilled)
or Lamb
River Plate Fresh
Meat Co. (British)
408.666
238.815
184.903
Sansisena Co.
(two plants)
(Argentine)
772.504
259.313
79.137
264.319
70.068
Las Palmas Co.
(British)
491.621
La Blanca Co. (US)
190.568
226.188
160.558
La Plata Cold
Storage (Swift, US)
598.963
148.921
399.159
Smithfield and
Argentine Meat Co.
(British)
1.699
114.678
105.625
196.322
206.983
52.015
Frigorífico
Argentino
(Argentine)
Source: Own elaboration from the data provided by Whelpley 1911, p. 54.
Table 5
Export quotas established after the First Meat War
(By meatpacking plants’ countries of origin)
Country
Quota
United States
41.35%
England
40.15%
Argentina
18.5%
Source: Own elaboration from the data provided by José Liceaga, Las carnes en la economía argentina (Buenos
Aires: Editorial Raigal, 1952).
25
Table 6
Exports by companies during World War I
Packing Company
1914
Quantity
%
1,568,101
29.3
1915
Quantity
%
1,382,992 24.0
1916
Quantity
%
1,299,804 19.6
La Plata (Swift)
Frigorífico Montevideo
(Swift)
605,814
11.3
896,665
15.6
816,194
12.3
La Plata (Armour)
−
−
356,845
6.2
804,174
12.1
La Blanca (Armour and
Morris)
858,338
16.0
721,477
12.5
739,715
11.1
Argentino Central (Wilson)
(3)
357,899
6.7
376,645
6.5
354,406
5.3
Total US Companies
3,390,152
63.3 3,734,624 64.8 4,014,293 60.4
Las Palmas (Nelson) (4)
884,443
16.5
866,104
15.0 1,536,272 23.1
Smithfield and Argentine
375,544
7.0
302,428
5.2
345,156
5.2
Sansinena
355,993
6.6
362,427
6.3
360,821
5.4
Frigorífico Urguaya (5)
354,186
6.6
500,030
8.7
346,207
5.2
Anglo-South American
−
−
−
−
47,991
0.7
Total
5,360,318 100.0 5,765,613 100.0 6,650,740 100.0
Notes: (2) Review of the River Plate. 3) Former Frigorífico Argentino. 4) Included River Plate
Co. 5) Owned by Compañía Sansisena
Source: Own elaboration from the data provided by Ministerio de Agricultura (1923)
1917
Quantity
%
910,061
15.2
787,978
750,868
13.1
12.5
684,904
11.4
312,369
5.2
3,446,180
57.4
1,480,911
24.7
326,494
5.4
247,689
4.1
267,904
4.5
235,194
3.9
6,004,372 100.0
Fresh Meat &
Table 7
Beef export quotas by firms established after the Third Meat War
Swift Co (La Plata, Rosario,
Montevideo and Patagonia)
24.447
%
Armour y Cía (La Plata, Santa Cruz,
Montevideo)
23.954
%
Vestey (Anglo, Campana, Paysandú)
22.539
%
Sansinena (Avellaneda and Uruguay)
6.5%
Smithfield (Zárate) Wilson Avellaneda
10%
Morris and River Plata Zárate
6.5%
Source: Own elaboration from the data provided by José Liceaga, Las carnes en la economía argentina (Buenos
Aires: Editorial Raigal, 1952), 106.
26
Table 8
Meat Packing Plants operating in Argentina by 1930
Cold Storage Capacity
Company Name
Location
Date
Comp. Sansinena de C.C.
Avellaneda
Comp. Sansinena de C.C.
Total capacity
(cold storage
and deposits)
mts3
Frozen
Chilled
1883
36765 (1)
−
50,798
Bahía Blanca
1902
7841 (1)
−
12,824
Compañía Swift de
La Plata
1904
41,000
40,000
106,000
Compañía Swift de
Rosario
1924
16,800
26,800
55,900
Compañía Swift de
Río Gallegos (P)
1912
3567 (1)
−
10,442
Compañía Swift de
San Julián (P)
1911
4609 (1)
−
8,984
Fr. Armour La Plata S.A.
La Plata
1914
22,211
38,465
68,548
Fr. Armour La Plata S.A.
Santa Cruz
1920
16500 (1)
−
16,500
Fr. Wilson de Argentina
Avellaneda
1905
9,600
10,200
29,600
S.A. Frigorífico Anglo
Dock Sud
1926
120000 (1)
−
120,000
S.A. Frigorífico Anglo
Campana (2)
1883
−
−
−
S. A. La Blanca
Avellaneda
1902
9,137
13,466
33,905
The R. Plate B. Meat C.
Zárate
1916
13,980
14,816
66,674
The Smithfield Arg. M.C.
Zárate
1904
9,064
40,187
64,032
Cía. Fr. Arg. T. del Fuego Tierra del Fuego
1917
2900 (1)
−
14,400
Soc. Arg. Fr. P. Deseado
Puerto Deseado
1922
2400 (1)
−
7,200
Frig Gualeguaychú S. A.
Gualeguaychú
1932
5,943
4,800
14,766
Cía. Arg. Buenos Aires
Arana (0)
1923
500 (1)
−
500
Cía. Sal. Y Fr. Concordia
Concordia
1924
250 (1)
−
500
English & Dutch M.C. Lt.
Las Palmas (0)
1886
14,631
−
27,528
Matad. Fr. Mosso Hnos.
Mendoza
1923
3,600
−
3,600
Matadero Frig. Municipal
Capital Federal
1930
−
55,781
55,781
(0) Closed plants, (1) Freezing and Chilled, (2) Destroyed by fire.
Source: Own elaboration from the data provided by VI Congreso Internacional del Frio, La industria del frio
en la República Argentina (Buenos Aires: Comité Ejecutivo Nacional del VI Congreso del Frio, 1932), 15.
27
Figure 1
Distribution of Trade amongst importing companies into the UK (mid-1930s)
Armourdela
Plata-LaBlanca
Armour&Co
24.64
20.94(Ch&F Beef),
17.11(M&L)
SwiftLaPlatay
Rosario
Swift&Co
26.39
22.43(Ch&F Beef),
18.33(M&L)
FrigoríficoAnglo
Union Cold
Storage
24,21
20.57(Ch&F Beef),
16.81(M&L)
Sansinena
Sansinena Co
8.87
7.54(Ch&F Beef),
6.16(M&L)
Smithfield
Smithfield
8.18
6.95(Ch&F Beef),
5.68(M&L)
Wilson
WilsonMeats
Ltd
7.69
6.53(Ch&F Beef),
5.34(M&L)
CAP
Sansinena,Smithfield,
Copp.Wholesale
Society
10.3
Packing House –
AJPoels
0.7+4
Grondona –
Gualeguachu
Source: Own elaboration from the data provided by The Board of Trade, Report of the Joint Committee of
Enquiry into the Anglo-Argentine Meat Trade (London, 1938), 20.
Source: Board of Trade, Report of the Joint Committee of Enquiry into the Anglo-Argentine Meat Trade,
London, 1938.
28
Figure 2: First Meatpacking plants in Argentina
Terrason
(1882)
•  Argen'neanCapital
•  In1898wasleasedbytheircompe'tors.
•  ClosedbytheendoftheXIXcentury.
RiverPlateFreshMeatCo
(1882/1883)
• Bri'shCapital-GWDrabble-
• Capitalof£450,000.
• LocatedinCampana
In1914:Bri'shandArgen'ne
MeatCo
•  MergerwithLasPalmas,andlatercontrolledbytheUnionColdStorage
(VesteyGroup,1923?)
•  Closedbytheendofthe1920s
SansinenadeCarnes
Congeladas-LaNegra-
Avellaneda(1883)(1891,
Tornquist&Co)
LasPalmasProduceCo.
(1886/87)
LaterEnglishandDutch
MeatCo.
•  Argen'neanCapital.Capitalof£900,000.
•  Controlledfrom1890sforTornquist&Co.
•  Con'nuaenac'vidaden1930.1952TransferidoCAPCierre1979.
•  Bri'shCapital.ControlledbyJamesNelsonandSons
(1892)
•  Capitalof£500.000.PlantinZarate.
• Mergerin1914withTheRiverPlate:Bri'shandArgen'neMeat
Co.LuegoEnglish&DutchM.C.Lt(from1923).Leasedand
closedbytheSouthAmericanMeatImporters’Freight
Commicee(1925/1927).
Own Elaboration
Figure 3: Meatpacking Plants installed at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Argentina.
SansinenaCo.Cuatreros
(1902-03)
•  Argen'neanCapitalswithThomasBorthwick&Sons
(Londres)
•  PlantinBahíaBlanca
•  In1952transferredtotheCAP
•  Closedin1979
SmithfieldandArgen'ne
MeatCo(1903-1905)
• Bri'shandArgen'necapitals.LateronlyBri'sh(1904).
• Capitalof£200.000
• In1947transferredtoCAP.
• Closedin1979.
LaPlataColdStorageCo
(1902-04)
CíaSwiULaPlata(1907)
• Bri'shandSouthAfricancapitals.Capitalof£548,000.
• AcquiredbySwiU&Coin1907for£350,000.
• Bankruptcyin1971
• Closedin1983.
LaBlancaColdStorage-
(1902/1903)LaterArmour&
Co.(1909-1912)
FrigoríficoArgen'no
(1903-05)
Wilson&Co.(1914)
• Argen'neanCapital.Capitalof£300.000.PlantinAvellaneda.
• AcquiredbytheNa'onalPackingCo.in1909for£340,000
From1911-1912controlledbyArmour&Co.andMorris&Co
Re-builtin1914(aUerafire).
• Closedin1963.
• Argen'neanCapital.Capitalof£250,000.PlantinValen]n
Alsina.
• 1914:FrigoríficoArgen'noCentral:controlledbySulzberger
andSons,LaterLaterWilson&Co.
• Closedin1960.ReopenedbyFASA?Closedin1980.
Own Elaboration
Figure 4: Changes in the meatpacking industry during WWI, Argentina.
29
WorldWarI:anewscenario
ArmourLaPlata
(1911,1915)
AmericanCapital.
Newplantat
Berisso-LaPlata
(June1915)
Closedin1969
AngloSouth
AmericanMeatCo,
controlledbythe
UnionColdStorage
(Vestey)1916
BriLshCapital.New
plantatZárate
LaterRiverPlate
BriLshand
ContentalMeatCo
(1925).Controlled
byArmour(1927)
Frigorífico
Santafesino(1917)
ArgenLneCapital.
SantaFe
SmallPlantCanned
Own Elaboration
Figure 5: Expansion to Patagonia (Argentina)
Patagonia(ArgenJna)
Swi8RioGallegos
•  AmericanCapital
•  Sheepplant
•  Openedin1911-1912
Swi8SanJulián(ex
NewPatagonianMeat
ColdStorage)
•  1910(1911Swi8)
•  SheepPlant
•  capitalnorteamericano
FrigoríficoRioGrande
–TierradelFuego
•  1916-1917
•  ArgenJnean-ChileanCapital:MenendezBehety
FrigorificoArmourde
SantaCruz(1917)
SociedadAnónimaPuerto
Deseado(exSociedad
CooperaJvaFrigoríficade
PuertoDeseado)
•  AmericaCapital
•  Sheep-KilledPlant
•  OperaJonsstartedin1920
•  1922-1927(1923)
•  ArgenJneanCapital
Own Elaboration
30
Figure 6: The 1920s in Argentina
•  AmericanCapital.NewPlantinRosario(SantaFe
Province)
•  Bankruptcyin1971.
•  Closedin1993.
FrigoríficoSwiGde
Rosario
(1924)
•  BriJshCapitalUnionColdStorage-VesteyGroup
•  NewPlantatDockSud(BuenosAires).
FrigoríficoAnglo
(1926-27)
• Closedin1968.
•  ArgenJneCapital
•  CooperaJve-NoparJcipaJonintheFC
•  Closedin1986.
Gualeguachu(1924)
FrigoríficoMunicipal
BuenosAires-Lisandro
delaTorre(1929)
•  Stateowned
•  ExportsvisGrondonayCía.
•  TransferredtotheCAP.1974
•  Closedin1977.
Own Elaboration
Figure 7: Meatpacking plants in Uruguay
Uruguay
LaFrigorífica
Uruguaya1902
(1904)
SwiLMontevideo
1911(1912)
• 1911-AcquiredbySansisena(Argen7ne)
• Closed(1929).
• Leaseinstalla7onstoFrigoríficoNacional
• FoundedasFrigoríficoMontevideo
• 1916:newdenomina7on:SwiLMontevideo
• Closed(1957)
FrigoríficoAr7gas
1916(1917Armour)
• UruguayanCapital
• AcquiredbyArmour(1917)
• Closed(1957)
FrigoríficoAnglo(ex
Liebig`s)1924
• AcquiredbyVesteyGroupin1924
• Closed(1968).Stateownedby1971
FrigoríficoNacional
(1928)
• State-ownedplant
• InstalledintheunusedSansisenaplant
• Exporttradeandmonopolyoftheinternalmarket.
• Closed1978
Own Elaboration
31
Figure 8: Meatpacking Plants in Brazil (1910s)
Brasil(1910s)
CompañíaFrigoríficay
PastorilSaoPaulo(1913,
Xin1914).Plantat
Barretos.LocalcapitalLandandCaFle-
DiversifiedBusiness
Wilson&Co.1914-15(atfirst
ConLnentalProductsCo(23%).
PlantinOsasco.Joint-venture
withBrazilLand,CaFle&
PackingCo.(UK).Landand
caFle.DiversifiedBusiness.
Armour&Co(1917).Plantat
Livramento,RioGrandedoSul.
Canningandjerkedbeef.
(CompanhiaArmourdoBrazil).
LaterbuiltanewplantinSao
Pablo(1919).
Swi^&Co(1917-1919).Plant
atRosario,RioGrandedelSur.
Canning.Land.(Companhia
Swi^doBrasil).Laterbuilt
anotherplant.
BrazilianMeatCo.(1917)Plant
atMendes(RiodoJaneiro).
BriLsh.Laterknownas
FrigorificoAnglo.
AngloBrazilianMeatCo
(foundedin1912butoperaLng
from1917).PlantatSantaCruz
(RiodoJaneiro).BriLsh.
Liquidatedin1919.
CompanhiaBritánicadoCarnes
(controlledbytheBriLshand
ArgenLneMeatCo).BriLsh.
Own Elaboration
Figure 9: Meatpacking plants in Brazil (1920s)
Own Elaboration
The1920s:concentra1on
VesteyGroup(Anglo)
SwiMInternacionalCo.
•  BrazilianMeatCo.
•  CompanhíaFrigoricaePastorilde
Barretos(1923)
•  FrigorificodeSantos(1924)
•  CíaFrigorificadePelotas
•  PlantatRioGrandedoSul(1919)
•  PlantatRosario
Armour&Co.
•  CompanhiaArmourdoRio
GrandedoSul,SantAnna(1919)
Fromthe1920s.
•  CompanhiaArmourdoBrazil,
SaoPaulo(1917)
Own Elaboration
32