The Wildest Fork

what your local market and a billion dollar beef producer have in common

📸: LA Business First

I’m a grocery store fanatic. You would think that after working in them for almost a decade I would’ve had my fill, but no. Not even close. I’ve been known to whip a quick U-turn when I spot a new specialty market or random niche grocery I’ve never been to. I can’t help myself. So when I saw a new market named Wild Fork with bright, eye-catching Nickelodeon orange graphics, I made a note to check it out ASAP. It’s a great name and looked cute in the few seconds I rolled passed it toward the hellscape of the Costco parking lot. Yeah, the marketing worked on this elder millennial but don’t let it work on you. Wild Fork is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

You’d think it was just a little family run business

Wild Fork bills itself as “a modern day meat and seafood market on a mission to change the way people shop for and eat protein.” Ok, I clearly overlooked the fact that they primarily sold meat when I drove by but that’s far from the problem. From a quick look at their website you would believe that they are a US based start-up trying to change our food system for the better. There’s all the typical nonsense to hipwash and greenwash what is essentially a store and delivery service that is full of frozen meat and seafood from all over the world, at very low prices. Nothing young, hip, or green about that. They have about 50 stores in the nation right now but are expanding quickly so if you haven’t seen one in your neighborhood, just wait. Wild Fork explains their low pricing through vertical integration, sneaking the word “farm” in there so that it sounds homespun, and claiming to be reducing food waste through freezing. “By controlling every step from farm to fork, we can offer the lowest prices without compromising on quality. Our fully frozen supply chain means we’re able to reduce food waste by as much as 50%, so we can pass on our savings to you.” What you won’t see on their website is any mention of their parent company, JBS, the largest meat packer in the world with annual revenue over $72 billion dollars.

I’ve talked about the many crimes of JBS over the years in newsletters and on podcasts, so I always keep an ear out for their fuckery, but this one totally escaped me. I was unaware of their connection to Wild Fork until I read about it in one of my favorite newsletters, The Checkout by

Errol Schweizer, Grocery Nerd

.

“[T]hrough the magic of pandering to millennials and Gen Z, JBS will be marketing Wild Fork as a fresh-focused, trend forward, brick and mortar with E-commerce and in-store pickup. They plan to build over 200 stores. Austin Frerick, author of Barons, which details the business models of conglomerates like JBS, states, ‘This is another example of JBS exploiting the image of family farms to their detriment.’ “

My mouth hung open. Of course it’s JBS.

The Brazil-based JBS is a massive business. According to World Animal Protection, JBS slaughters more than 13 million chickens, 128,000 pigs, and 77,000 cattle around the world EVERY DAY. JBS controls over 22% of the US beef market all by itself. And as supranational corporations often do, JBS regularly engages in cartoon levels of villainy. They’ve been repeatedly caught sourcing cattle raised on illegally deforested lands in the Amazon. Yes, their business is directly linked to destroying the rainforest. It’s a straight line, no conspiracies needed. Cattle ranching is responsible for the vast majority of deforestation in the Amazon and Americans are the second largest market buying all that beef. We’ve got cow blood and the ashes of the rainforest all over our hands.

But is it? No.

After their ties to deforestation in the Amazon were made public in 2009 through a report from Greenpeace, the JBS promised to monitor their supply chain and remove suppliers who engaged in deforestation by 2011. When another report by Réporter Brasil, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and The Guardian uncovered that they were still sourcing cattle raised on deforested land, JBS promised again to clean up their supply chain by 2025. It’s giving “I’m not sorry I keep doing it, I’m just sorry I keep getting caught.” In 2021, JBS took out a full page ad in The New York Times promising that it would achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. Sound like bullshit? You’d be right.

This year New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against JBS alleging their claims about emissions reductions are unsubstantiated, unrealistic, and unachievable. She argues these claims not only mislead consumers into believing their product is good for the environment but could also “in effect, provide environmentally conscious consumers with a ‘license’ to eat beef.” Add this to their numerous human rights violations against workers here in the US during COVID and beyond, the exploitation of immigrant populations in their factories, intentionally selling rotten and expired meat, working with farms that practice “modern day slavery”, a legacy of animal abuse,  getting caught bribing hundreds of politicians to the point they had to pay one of the biggest fines in global corporate history- $3.2 billion dollars- and you might wonder why anyone would buy their products. Spoiler alert: you probably have.

JBS has over 107 subsidiary brands aside from Wild Fork, so it’s almost impossible to trace their influence in our food system as a regular consumer. JBS products are sold at retailers like Costco, BJs, Food Lion, Weis Markets, WinCo, Stop & Shop, Shoprite, and Fairway Markets. JBS is also a global supplier to McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Outback, KFC, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, The Cheesecake Factory, and Johnny Rockets among many, many more establishments. In fact, this week McDonald’s, the world’s largest buyer of beef and pork, filed a lawsuit against JBS and three of the other largest meat producers for price gouging. The suit alleges that JBS, Tyson, Cargill and National Beef Packing violated U.S. antitrust law by coordinating to artificially raise prices for McDonald’s and other buyers, like the average American consumer. Yes, the only thing JBS loves more than beef is a criminal conspiracy. 99% of all beef in the US comes from factory farms and at least 22% of that beef is directly linked to destroying the Amazon, so maybe everybody needs to cool it on the beef, JBS included.

I could spend several more paragraphs dedicated the crimes that JBS has been found guilty of over the years but you get the drift. They'd be the official meat supplier to The Death Star if given the chance. Wild Fork is exactly the same. Don’t be fooled by the marketing, clever packaging, or aspirational copy on their website. Wild Fork is just another attempt to launder climate destroying products like rainforest beef through empty words and a Gen Z aesthetic. Don’t let yourself or your friends fall for it. Hell, maybe consider giving up meat a few nights a week to free yourself from the grip of JBS and our factory farm system. The planet would be grateful. Beans and I are always here to help.

Want some new, beef-free recipes? Join the paid subscribers in our Sunday Recipe Club for just $5 a month.  We’ve made a shelf stable mac and cheese powder to keep in the pantry for quick dinners and this week we’re expanding on the Artichoke Chickenish Nuggets recipe from last week. You can use it to make patties for burgers, nuggets, meatballs, and even a killer chickenish parmesan. Want in? Click right this way.

I’ve also got a holiday dinner party guide full of 7 recipes perfect for the Halloween season. The Host a Ghost recipe booklet is great for spooky nights and cozy dinner parties. Grab your copy before it’s too late!

Last, but not least, have you seen a Wild Fork where you are? Been inside one? Drop all the details down below. I wanna hear it. Thanks again to everyone who reads, shares, comments, and likes this newsletter. Everything you do to help share my work means a lot.

xoxo,

Michelle