MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Meat supply resumed to French supermarket chain stores in Brazil after apology

“If Carrefour France's communication generated confusion ... we apologize,” Bompard said

French supermarket giant Carrefour apologized so that Brazilian meatpackers would end their boycott of the group and resume deliveries to stores nationwide, Agencia Brasil reported Tuesday. The measure had been adopted after the company's CEO Alexandre Bompard said last week that meat produced in the South American country did not meet European standards for which he was forced to recant.

“We know that Brazilian agriculture provides high-quality meat, respect for standards and taste. If Carrefour France's communication generated confusion and could have been interpreted as questioning our partnership with Brazilian agriculture and as a criticism of it, we apologize,” he said in a letter sent to Agriculture Minister Carlos Fávaro.

The crisis began when Bompard posted on a social network the letter he had sent to French producers, promising not to use meat from Mercosur countries in French markets. The message was poorly received by Brazilian producers, who started a movement to boycott the supply of meat to Carrefour's markets in Brazil.

The Masterboi meatpacker, which supplies between 400 and 450 tons of meat a month to Carrefour stores, told Agência Brasil that it had suspended new meat deliveries since the weekend. However, with Tuesday's retraction, the company has 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 said that deliveries had resumed. “The delivery schedule for beef products has been resumed and the Company expects the normalization of the replenishment of such products over the next few days,” it said.

Brazil's Agriculture Ministry praised in a statement “the work carried out by the sector, the active management of the associations and their members in defense of a production of excellence that reaches the tables of consumers in more than 160 countries around the world.”

In a communiqué sent to Agência Brasil, the Carrefour Group said that it already buys almost all of the meat sold in French markets from French producers and that this decision was intended to help entrepreneurs in the European country.

“Carrefour France's decision was not intended to change the rules of a market that is widely structured 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, of the continuity of our support and our local purchases,” the group said in a statement.

The Brazilian Association of Meat Exporters (Abiec) said in a statement that it welcomed the retraction by Carrefour's global president. “We hope that, with this, the French chain's operations will be re-established. The Brazilian agro-industry stands out in the world and meets the highest quality, health, and environmental standards of the most demanding markets globally.”

Bompard's post also caused outrage and criticism from the president of the São Paulo State Federation of Agriculture and Livestock (Faesp), Tirso Meirelles. In a video posted on social media, he criticized the measure, calling it “protectionist.”

“They don't know the sustainability of Brazilian cattle. Today we have fantastic work involving farming, livestock, and forestry that at the same time gives quality of life to the animal and sequesters carbon,” said Meirelles. For him, decisions like this one by Carrefour put the planet's food security at risk.

The Brazilian Export Promotion Agency (Apex Brasil) also took a stand against the Carrefour CEO's remarks. The Agency stressed the importance of combating unfounded discourse about Mercosur products and reaffirmed the role of traceability and sustainability in Brazilian livestock farming.