Billionaire Abilio Diniz wants Brazilians to be able to afford luxury ham this Christmas

Abilio Diniz, the billionaire chairman of Brazil’s biggest processed-food maker, wants to make sure his countrymen can afford top-grade ham this Christmas.

Diniz’s BRF is not planning a price increase in its home market at least in December, despite above-target inflation and a weak currency pressuring costs, executives said yesterday.

The move is not purely altruistic: With Brazil’s economy heading toward the longest recession since the 1930s and unemployment soaring, Mr Diniz is making a play to hold onto market share amid increasing competition from JBS, the world’s largest meat producer.

As BRF pours money into marketing its lower-end Perdigao brand, it is also running TV commercials for its premium Parma ham for the first time.

Investors are not thrilled, they sent the stock to its biggest drop in seven years on October 30 after the company reported that profit margins in Brazil shrank in the third quarter.

CEO Pedro Faria says sustaining consumer loyalty in the company’s biggest market is an investment to make sure profit rebounds in the long run, when growth returns to Brazil.

BRF wants customers to associate its luxury Sadia brand with success and the economic good times of the recent past, when the size of the economy more than quadrupled in dollar terms in the decade through 2011.