Brazil Meat Scandal Causes Agriculture Minister to Expose Factory Processes

Brazil’s government appealed Wednesday to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 163 other members not to impose “arbitrary” bans on the country’s more than $13 billion meat export industry.

NFU Scotland President Andrew McCornick commented: “The fact that the world’s largest red meat exporter is home to this scandal is a reminder that the best way for consumers to ensure they are buying fresh, quality, and tasty food is to buy food from Scotland which is clearly labelled as Scottish”.

The news was released on Saturday that some of Brazil’s biggest meat processors have been selling rotten beef and poultry for several years.

Other Brazilian meat factories not placed under surveillance by government authorities are still able to export meat to Europe. But Francisco Turra, head of Brazilian beef producers association ABPA, told reporters it had put the entire meat industry in jeopardy and “destroyed” a hard-won image of quality products. If inspectors were paid to not do their jobs, it is impossible to know if putrid products entered the market, Alcadipani said.

“According to the Brazilian authorities, 21 establishments are implicated in the inquiry, and four out of these 21 were eligible to export to the European Union, ” commission spokesperson Enrico Brivio told this site.

While none of the slaughter or processing facilities implicated in the Brazilian scandal have shipped meat products to the United States, FSIS immediately instituted additional pathogen testing of all shipments of raw beef and ready-to-eat products from Brazil upon hearing reports of the Brazilian investigation.

The European Commission said it would monitor meat imports from Brazil, and any companies found to be involved in a meat scandal there will be denied access to the European Union market, a spokesman said.

According to the police, the adulterated meat was sold in the domestic market as well as exported. More than 80pc of the 107,400 tonnes of chicken that South Korea imported a year ago came from Brazil, and BRF supplied nearly half of that.

Major Hong Kong supermarket chain PARKnSHOP said it had removed Brazilian pork, beef and chicken from shelves.

Hong Kong, the biggest market for Brazilian beef, having imported US$718mn worth of it in 2016, was the latest to temporarily suspend the import of frozen and chilled meat and poultry on March 21.

“We expect more than 30 countries to question Brazil about this issue”, Brazilian Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said Monday. “The (agriculture) ministry has a huge job ahead of it”, he said.