(Reuters) — Tyson Foods, America’s largest meat processor, has offered to buy Hillshire Brands for $6.3 billion, upstaging Pilgrim’s Pride Corp.’s offer to buy the sausage company earlier in the week.
If the Tyson offer goes through, it will broaden Tyson’s supermarket food offerings. As U.S. consumers add more protein and fresh food to their diets, food sellers are seeking to turn the trend into profit.
Global mergers and acquisition activity in the meat sector has totalled $20.3 billion this year, up 98 percent from the same period in 2013.
