(AFP/DAMIEN MEYER)
“Carrefour must not buy Brazilian meat, Carrefour must stop buying Brazilian meat for its stores in Brazil,” Brazilian Minister of Agriculture Carlos Favaro told the Globonews channel on Monday, November 25.
In the midst of the debate around the EU-Mercosur agreement, in Brazil, companies in the meat sector have decided to no longer supply
Carrefour group stores
in the country. Monday, November 25,
Brazilian Minister of Agriculture gave them his support.
“I am
happy with the attitude
of our suppliers. If for the French people, Carrefour must not buy Brazilian meat, Carrefour must stop buying Brazilian meat for its stores in Brazil,” Minister Carlos Favaro told the channel
Globonews.
The controversy began on Wednesday, when Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard wrote to the majority agricultural union FNSEA that the supermarket chain
“will not sell any meat from Mercosur”.
An announcement related to
France's opposition
to the draft trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and four Mercosur countries – Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay -, against a backdrop of
demonstrations by French farmers
who fear that this agreement will open the door to unfair competition. The French group nevertheless stressed that its refusal to sell meat from Mercosur countries only applied to Carrefour stores in France. But this announcement
aroused great indignation
in Brazil, particularly from the powerful agro-trading sector.
Carrefour Brazil “deeply deplores this situation”
In a joint press release, several sector associations declared on Thursday that “if Alexandre Bompard defends that Mercosur is not a supplier capable of meeting the French market (…),
it must not supply Carrefour in any other country”,
including Brazil. The Brazilian giant JBS, world number one in the meat sector, has not commented on this situation. But a source from this company confirmed to AFP that
JBS had indeed “totally suspended the supply of beef
of Carrefour group stores in Brazil”, due to ”
the indignation of the entire sector
in the face of this attack on Brazilian products”.
“Unfortunately, the decision to suspend the supply of meat has
an impact on our customers,
especially those who trust us to supply their homes with quality products,” Carrefour Brazil said on Monday.
“We deeply deplore this situation
and we reaffirm our esteem and confidence in the Brazilian agricultural sector, with which we have always maintained a solid partnership,” also declared the group, which has 130,000 employees in Brazil.
The president of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, Arthur Lira
lambasted on Monday “European protectionism,
especially from France vis-à-vis Brazil.” “It is not
it is not possible that the CEO of an important group like Carrefour will not retract
after comments (which imply) no longer buying animal proteins from South America”, he insisted during a conference in Sao Paulo.
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