The economics of feijoada, Brazil’s national dish

Feijoada is one of the signature dishes of Brazilian cuisine. Comprising a stew of black beans and various cuts of pork, it is customarily served with rice, sauteed kale, fried cassava flour, banana, and — if you’re lucky — a whole pork chop. The suffix -ada signifies that feijoada is more of an event than a meal, and friends and family traditionally gather around the table at Saturday lunchtime to tuck into plateful after plateful of what is largely considered to be Brazil’s national dish.

Feijoada not only fuels millions of Brazilians around the country each week, it also provides a crucial boost to two of Brazil’s most important agricultural production chains: pig farming and the cultivation of beans, which produced more than BRL 40 billion (USD 7.5 billion) combined in 2020 alone.

While the dish of pork and black beans itself is largely associated with the Southeast of the country — while the North, Northeast, and Center-West have their own regional variations of feijoada — its ingredients are overwhelmingly cultivated and produced in the South.

The states of Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Rio Grande do Sul are Brazil’s largest pork producers, while the majority of black beans come from farms in Paraná.

And Brazil’s farmers want more. According to the Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation, they intend to further increase the consumption of these foodstuffs.

Pass the pork …

Pork is the third-most purchased meat in Brazil, behind chicken and beef. Brazilians consume an average of 17.5 kilos of pork each year. But this total is...