French retail group Carrefour apologized to Brazilian meat producers after the company’s CEO, Alexandre Bompard, stated last week that meat produced in Brazil would not respect the European country’s standards. This Tuesday (26), Bompard recanted, praising the quality of Brazilian meat and apologized.
“We know that Brazilian agriculture provides high quality meat, respect for standards and flavor. If Carrefour França’s communication generated confusion and could have been interpreted as questioning our partnership with Brazilian agriculture and as a criticism of it, we apologize”, stated the president of Carrefour in a letter sent to the Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Fávaro, who had questioned the group’s position.
Minister of Agriculture Carlos Fávaro. Photo: Valter Campanato/Agência Brasil – Valter Campanato/Agência Brasil
The crisis began when Bompard published, on a social network, the letter he sent to French producers, promising to no longer use meat from Mercosur countries in French markets. The message was poorly received by Brazilian producers, who started a boycott movement in supplying meat to Carrefour markets in Brazil.
The Masterboi slaughterhouse, which supplies between 400 and 450 tons of meat per month to Carrefour establishments, informed Brazil Agency which has suspended new meat deliveries since the weekend. However, with today’s retraction, the company authorized the resumption of deliveries. According to Carrefour, there have been no meat supply problems in recent days.
In a statement sent to shareholders, Carrefour Brasil informed that deliveries had resumed. “The delivery schedule for beef products has been resumed and the Company expects the replenishment of such products to normalize over the next few days”, he commented.
Map
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa), in a statement, commented on the apology and praised the quality of Brazilian meat. “Mapa praises the work carried out by the sector, the active management of associations and their members in defending excellent production that reaches consumer tables in more than 160 countries around the world”, he highlighted.
In a note sent to Brazil Agencythe Carrefour Group said that it already purchases almost all of the meat sold in French markets from French producers and that this decision was intended to help businesspeople in the European country.
“Carrefour France’s decision was not intended to change the rules of a broadly structured market in its local supply chains, which follows the regional preferences of our customers. With this decision, we wanted to assure French farmers, who are going through a serious crisis, the continuity of our support and our local purchases,” the group said in a statement.
Satisfaction
The Brazilian Association of Meat Exporting Industries (Abiec) stated, in a statement, that it welcomed the retraction of the global president of Carrefour.
“We hope that, with this, the operations of the French network will be reestablished. The Brazilian agroindustry stands out in the world and meets the highest quality, health and environmental standards of the most demanding markets globally”, highlighted the entity.
Repercussions
Alexandre Bompard’s post also caused indignation and criticism from the president of the Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of the State of São Paulo (Faesp), Tirso Meirelles. He spoke out, in a video published on social media, criticizing the measure, calling it “protectionist” in relation to French production.
“They don’t know the sustainability of Brazilian cattle. Today we have fantastic work involving crops, livestock and forestry that at the same time gives the animal quality of life and sequesters carbon”, said Meirelles. For him, decisions like this by Carrefour put the planet’s food security at risk.
The Brazilian Export Promotion Agency (Apex Brasil) also took a stance against the Carrefour CEO’s speech. The Agency highlighted the importance of combating unfounded speeches about Mercosur products and reaffirmed the role of traceability and sustainability in Brazilian livestock farming.
