Carrefour says it regrets the way its statements were perceived in Brazil – 11/26/2024 at 1:26 p.m.

Threatened with a boycott in Brazil, the French distribution giant Carrefour declared on Tuesday that it regretted that its previous commitment not to sell South American meat on its shelves in France had been perceived as “a questioning of our partnership with Brazilian agriculture and a critique of it”.

Carrefour said in a statement that it sources almost exclusively from France for the meat it sells in France and exclusively from Brazil for the meat it sells in Brazil, adding that it will continue to do so.

The group's CEO Alexandre Bompard published a letter from himself on November 20 on X, addressed to the president of the FNSEA, the main professional union in the French agricultural world.

Alexandre Bompard declared that in the face of the free trade project between the European Union and Mercosur, “Carrefour wants to form a united front with the agricultural world and today makes a commitment not to market any meat from Mercosur.”

These comments were strongly criticized by companies in the Brazilian agri-food sector, who denounced in a joint press release “a protectionist posture”.

(Written by Florence Loève, edited by Augustin Turpin)