First General Mills, Now Hormel: Why Big Food Is Quietly Retreating From Brazil

In 2017, Hormel Foods paid $104 million to buy its way into Brazil and called it a platform for growth across South America. In July 2026, it is paying its way back out.

The maker of Spam, Planters and Skippy has agreed to sell its Brazilian business, the Ceratti brand of mortadella, sausage and salami, to local producer Zanchetta Alimentos. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the deal is expected to close within weeks pending regulatory approval. For a company with roughly $12 billion in annual sales, the money involved is small. The money involved is small; the signal is not.

A quiet admission that the growth bet failed

Hormel bought Ceratti owner Cidade do Sol in 2017 to enter one of the world's largest protein markets. The logic was textbook: a rising middle class, growing meat consumption, and a base to build on. Eight years later, the base never scaled.

On the company's fourth-quarter earnings call in December 2025, interim CEO Jeffrey Ettinger was blunt. Brazil, he said, was "challenged" and had been "a drag in terms of our overall performance," hurting the international unit's ability to hit its growth targets. "Everything is under review," he added. "We do continue to look at our portfolio in total for what makes sense, what doesn't." The Ceratti sale is the first visible answer.

Brazil is turning into a Big Food exit door

Hormel is not alone, and it is not even first. In March 2026, General Mills agreed to sell its Brazilian business to local group 3corações for about $153 million (800 million reais), part of the same push to lift margins and sharpen where it competes abroad. Two American food giants have now walked out of Brazil inside four months, and both handed their assets to domestic buyers.

That last detail matters. A decade ago, the flow ran the other way. US and European majors bought into emerging markets to catch demand their home markets could no longer deliver. The buyers today are regional champions like Zanchetta and 3corações, picking up assets that global players could not make work. The globalization playbook is running in reverse.

Focus is beating footprint

The retreat is deliberate. Hormel is midway through a "Transform and Modernize" program, built by new president John Ghingo, that targets $250 million in annual savings through supply-chain fixes and a simpler portfolio. Earlier in 2026 the company sold its commodity whole-bird turkey business so Jennie-O could concentrate on higher-margin ground turkey and deli meat. Selling Brazil follows the same rule: keep what earns, exit what distracts.

The timing sharpens the point. At home, Hormel is riding strong demand for protein, with Spam and Planters gaining as shoppers trade into affordable, shelf-stable meat and snacks. This is not a company retreating from weakness across the board. It is choosing to put capital where returns are highest and pull it out of a market that soaked up management attention for a thin payoff.

It is a rule the whole sector is now following. Nestlé is cutting to four core units and offloading water and ice cream. Kraft Heinz has centralized buying rather than chase scale it cannot digest. Unilever is spinning out its ice cream arm. In a slow-growth, cost-heavy market, a tighter business that earns more beats a bigger one that earns less.

What it means for operators, investors and buyers

For operators, the lesson is that geographic reach is no longer a trophy. Every market a company holds now has to clear a return bar or become a candidate for sale. For investors, the wave of small, unglamorous divestitures is worth watching closely, because it often signals a management team getting honest about where it actually makes money. And for buyers, especially regional players and private capital, the pullback is an opening: global majors are now willing sellers of assets they once called strategic, at prices set by their urgency to simplify rather than the asset's peak value. Brazil may be the canary. The list of markets under review is longer than one country.