The company has been regularly criticized on various grounds, including allegations of labor law violations and environmental factors such as for sourcing meat from farms that purportedly contribute to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

It leads the world in slaughter capacity, at 51.4 thousand head per day, and continues to focus on production operations, processing, and export plants, nationally and internationally.

[citation needed] With the new acquisition, JBS entered the pork market, to end the year as the third largest producer and processor of this type of meat in the United States.

[13] On September 16, 2009, JBS announced that it had acquired the food operation of Grupo Bertin, one of three Brazilian market leaders, consolidating its position as the largest beef producer in the world.

[21] By March 2017, JBS SA remained the world's largest supplier of animal protein,[22] after a series of acquisitions in part funded by loans from banks controlled by the Brazilian government.

[24] On March 17, 2017, it was announced that Brazil was investigating its meat-packing industry for "allegedly bribing food-sanitation inspectors", with JBS SA among the dozens of firms targeted,[21] in particular a single employee.

[24] On May 17, O Globo reported that it had obtained a recording of Michel Temer encouraging JBS chairman Joesley Batista to "bribe a jailed former legislator to buy the lawmaker’s silence."

[14] On May 19, 2017, Joesley Batista admitted to paying bribes to Michel Temer, Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, over the previous 14 years.

[14] In May 2017 JBS retained law firm Baker McKenzie to negotiate possible criminal charges with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

[39] Outbreaks of COVID-19 have also been found in five other JBS beef processing plants, in Souderton, Pennsylvania; Plainwell, Michigan; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Cactus, Texas; and Grand Island, Nebraska.

[51] JBS's production structure is embedded in consumer markets worldwide, with plants installed in the world's four leading beef producing nations (Brazil, Argentina, United States, and Australia), serving 110 countries through exports.

[citation needed] On May 17, 2017, JBS purchased a large quantity of U.S. dollars in the market a few hours before the disclosure of the scandal that caused the currency to skyrocket and led the BM&FBOVESPA to suspend trading after a 10% drop.

[75][needs update] In 2019, the Trump administration allocated US$62.4 million to subsidiary JBS USA from a fund to intended help U.S. farmers affected by the trade war with China.

[77][needs update] On March 17, 2017, some JBS company meatpacking plants were targeted for investigation during Operation Weak Meat conducted by the Federal Police (PF).

[78] On May 12, 2017, the Federal Police (PF) launched Operation Bullish, which investigated fraud in the loans granted by the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) through its subsidiary BNDESPAR to JBS.

The PF found evidence that these operations were executed without the requirement of guarantees and with the improper waiver of contractual premiums, resulting in a loss of approximately R$1.2 billion to public coffers.

[79] On May 17, 2017, the technical area of the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) calculated that BNDES had incurred losses of R$711.3 million in stock and debenture purchases from the JBS group.

TCU technicians assessed that BNDES failed to collect the resources it was entitled to, did not supervise the use of the invested money, and did not consider the social impact of the operations carried out with the group.

The operation, conducted in conjunction with the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), investigated whether JBS and its parent company engaged in insider trading of dollars in the days leading up to the plea bargain of Joesley and Wesley Batista.

This is due to Joesley Batista's plea bargain, which directly implicated President Michel Temer, including highly compromising audio and video recordings.

Another factor contributing to the stock market decline was the police summons issued against Dilma Rousseff, Renan Calheiros, Eduardo Braga, and Vital do Rêgo regarding illicit donations of R$40 million from JBS to politicians in the 2014 presidential elections.

[92] The CPI has been criticized by lawmakers and the press for being used, in the words of João Gualberto and Otto Alencar, to pressure the Federal Public Ministry,[93][94][95][96] and to change the rules of plea bargaining.

[115] This led the Donald Trump administration to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA), a law created to ensure supply during the Korean War, to keep the meatpacking plants operating.

[124] In December 2022, Brazilian federal prosecutors released a report showing that "Nearly 17% of the cattle bought by JBS SA in Brazil's Para state in the Amazon rainforest allegedly came from ranches with "irregularities" such as illegal deforestation",[125] according to Reuters.

[127] In 2017, Greenpeace stopped monitoring JBS' compliance with the Compromisso Público da Pecuária na Amazônia (Public Commitment for Livestock in the Amazon) until the company proves it is meeting all the established criteria.

[130] In 2017, De Olho nos Ruralistas, an observatory of agribusiness in Brazil, published an article revealing that JBS had purchased 449 cattle heads from Eliseu Padilha's farm, Chief of Staff of the Civil House in the Michel Temer government, since 2014.

[138] In 2020, Nordea, the largest bank in northern Europe, divested R$240 million from JBS due to the company's involvement in corruption scandals, deforestation, slave labor, and cases of COVID-19 in the slaughterhouses.

[139] In 2020, a report by Amnesty International, supported by a study published in the journal Science, accuses JBS of violating the UN guidelines on corporate social responsibility and human rights and the industry's beef agreement by selling cattle that grazed illegally in indigenous lands that were deforested.

[141] In November, the Bolsonaro government presented JBS at the COP-26 as a success story in decarbonizing the animal protein sector, contradicting the report by the Federal Public Ministry.

[147] Pozzebon was the leader of a criminal organization engaged in illegal logging and extortion, known as the owner of 120 sawmills throughout the Northern region of the country, which earned him the title of 'Brazil's largest deforester'.