The Setup: A Family Farm Gets Decimated
Hickman's Egg Ranch survived 81 years in Arizona before disaster struck in May 2024. Avian flu tore through their facilities like wildfire. Within three weeks, 6 million birds were dead. That represented 95% of their flock and 80% of Arizona's egg production capacity. The family business faced a brutal math problem: two years to rebuild, hundreds of layoffs, and somewhere between $37 million to $100 million in federal bailout money just to start over.
Then came the Brazilians.
In November, Mantiqueira USA, a joint venture between founding family and JBS, acquired Hickman's for an estimated $300 million. The price seems steep until you understand what they bought: a devastated operation they can rebuild using their own playbook, plus immediate access to the Mountain West and Pacific markets. Mantiqueira's son, now CEO of the US operation, had already relocated to Colorado months before the deal closed. They weren't opportunistic. They were strategic.
Why Brazilian Egg Companies Punch Above Their Weight
Leandro Pinto started Mantiqueira in 1987 knowing nothing about chickens. He rented a farm with 30,000 birds because he needed a job. Today, Mantiqueira operates 18 million layers (jumping to 28 million post-Hickman's) and generates $500 million in annual revenue. The company just leapfrogged from 10th globally to 4th.
The secret lies in what Pinto did in 1996. After touring European equipment manufacturers, he installed Brazil's first fully automated egg operation. From hen to carton, no human hand touches the product. This approach, revolutionary for Brazil at the time, became Mantiqueira's competitive moat. The company processes eggs using Moba grading machines capable of handling 191,000 eggs per hour at their newest facility.
Contrast this with much of the US industry, where smaller regional producers still rely on semi-automated systems. Mantiqueira also pioneered cage-free production in Brazil (2017), launched e-commerce subscription services (Clube do Ovo), and built diversified product lines from organic to plant-based egg alternatives. American consumers think of eggs as commodities. Mantiqueira thinks of eggs as a platform for brand differentiation.
The Bigger Picture: A Brazilian Egg War Goes Global
Mantiqueira isn't alone. Ricardo Faria, known as Brazil's "Egg King," moved first and faster. His Global Eggs holding company acquired Spain's Grupo Hevo for roughly $120 million in November 2024. Three months later, he closed the big one: Hillandale Farms, the fourth-largest US producer with 18.34 million layers, for $1.1 billion.
That deal immediately made Global Eggs a $2 billion revenue company with operations across three continents. Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual injected $300 million for an 11% stake, and Faria started planning an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. The strategy is clear: build a global egg platform while American producers remain regionally focused.
These moves didn't happen in a vacuum. JBS, the world's largest meat processor, took a 50% stake in Mantiqueira in January 2025 for $321 million. JBS needed eggs because beef margins are compressing (their North American beef profits dropped 50% recently), their plant-based protein bet (Planterra) flopped, and eggs represent inelastic demand. When protein prices spike, consumers switch from beef to eggs. They don't stop eating protein.
The Avian Flu Created the Opening
Here's where timing becomes everything. The US egg industry has been hammered by highly pathogenic avian influenza since 2022. More than 170 million birds have died or been culled. Hickman's wasn't unique, just particularly exposed. They lost birds in November 2024, again in January 2025, and catastrophically in May 2025.
The disease exposed a structural vulnerability: smaller, regionally concentrated producers can be wiped out in weeks. Hickman's operated primarily in Arizona with some Colorado capacity. When the virus hit, they had nowhere to shift production. Cal-Maine Foods, America's largest producer with 40+ million layers spread across multiple states, can absorb localized outbreaks. A top-20 producer concentrated in one region cannot.
This created a once-in-a-generation buying opportunity. Mantiqueira isn't just acquiring capacity. They're buying devastated assets at discounted valuations, then rebuilding using superior automation and biosecurity protocols developed in Brazil. The 20-month recovery timeline Hickman's projected? Expect Mantiqueira to beat it. They have the capital, the expertise, and the political backing (through JBS) to accelerate.
What This Means for the American Egg Industry
The US egg market is already highly consolidated. Cal-Maine Foods controls roughly 20% of national production. The top four producers control nearly 40% of the market, approaching thresholds economists use to identify concentrated markets vulnerable to pricing coordination. The Justice Department is currently investigating whether major egg producers engaged in price-fixing. Cal-Maine reported gross profits up 342% through fiscal 2025's second quarter, and their profits averaged 948% higher since 2022 compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Into this charged environment come two Brazilian companies with deep pockets and global ambitions. They're not playing the old game of regional consolidation. They're building vertically integrated, multinational platforms that can survive avian flu outbreaks, navigate export restrictions, and capture margin across the value chain from hatchery to consumer brand.
For American producers, this represents a new competitive reality. The egg industry, historically dominated by family-owned operations and regional cooperatives, is going the way of beef, pork, and poultry: consolidated, internationalized, and capital-intensive. Smaller producers face a choice: sell to the consolidators now while valuations remain reasonable, or risk getting stranded when the next avian flu wave hits.
For consumers, the question is whether this consolidation delivers innovation and food security, or simply extracts rent from a concentrated market. Brazilian egg companies built their businesses on automation and differentiation. Whether that translates to better products and more stable prices in the US remains to be seen.