Andréia Moreira da Fonseca Boechat

From the 1990s, the supply chain of Brazilian beef has undergone numerous changes,which meant that the companies would create new strategies, among them, merger and acquisitions taking place in the slaughter industry and that have left more concentrated, enabling refrigerators exercise buyer power by reducing the price paid for live cattle. But despite all the structural changes and the exercise of buying power is likely, in Brazil there are few studies addressing this issue, especially by entering the space in the analysis. Based on the above, this study aims to identify the existence of buyer power exercise between refrigerators and ranchers of the productive chain of Brazilian beef,and the impact of this exercise on the price paid for live cattle. To achieve the goal, it used multidisciplinary concept and Polygons Thiessen (1911) for defining the relevant market by the geographical size and Error Correction Mechanism (VEC) to identify the exercise of buyer power. Concluding that there is buyer power in the supply chain of Brazilian beef, the largest exercise in more concentrated markets, via lower prices paid to ranchers for cattle.