EU report slams Brazilian meat guarantees as Mercosur talks take place

Brazil cannot guarantee standards on meat exports to the European Union, the EU’s Health and Food Safety Commission’s (DG Sante) latest audit report has found.

The auditors found that while Brazil’s official control system has the capacity to meet EU requirements, the system is not fully or effectively implemented for poultry and horsemeat – and this compromises the reliability of export certification.

On beef, the auditors noted problems on the use of ineligible meat and meat unfit for human consumption, listing of [approved] establishments not up to date and sampling of products of microbiological criteria.

They also found problems on the implementation of the approval conditions, animal welfare and food chain information.

Brazil had no procedures in place to ensure rejected consignments are not subsequently re-dispatched to the EU

Brazil had no procedures in place to ensure rejected consignments are not subsequently re-dispatched to the EU, according to the report.

While Brazilian authorities reacted swiftly to the police findings on Operation Weak Flesh, they did not go beyond the 21 companies involved, to examine linked businesses owned by the same food business operator.

The report highlights ongoing failures by the Brazilian authorities and points out that “most of the shortcomings detected during this audit had already been the subject of recommendations in previous DG Sante audits.”

Brazilian authorities “had provided written guarantees that the issues concerned by previous recommendations had been addressed. However, the findings of this audit demonstrate that those previous guarantees were not fully reliable”, the report concluded.

Beef, horsemeat and poultry

The EU audit was carried out in early May and involved visits to 13 slaughter houses (six beef, two horse and five poultry), plus their integrated cutting plants.

It also included five meat preparation businesses linked to the poultry slaughter houses and six meat products establishments. No farms were audited.

IFA president Joe Healy said that the report “confirms that the Brazilian authorities had seriously misled the EU Commission and cannot guarantee European consumers that meat products exported to the EU have been produced in accordance with EU requirements”.

“This latest EU report completely undermines any credibility to the arguments being made in the Mercosur trade talks that Brazil will ever meet EU production standards on beef and other meat imports,” he continued.

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