Bloomberg News reported this week that Repórter Brasil – an independent research group that focuses on environmental and labour issues in Brazil – identified more than a dozen cases where cattle slaughtered in JBS and Minerva beef processing plants in Brazil originated on farms identified as employing slave workers.

JBS South America, headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is one of the largest meat-processing companies in the world with 150 meat processing sites across the world and employing 233,000 people.

According to Repórter Brasil, federal inspectors who searched the properties found some workers living in shacks made of tree branches, no toilet facilities, kitchen facilities or clean water for drinking or bathing.

In a statement, JBS said that it strictly complies with all commitments to fight slave labour on farms and that it blocked the ranches in question as soon as they became aware of the issues. Processors monitor direct suppliers of cattle for slaughter but don’t have any accurate way of tracking where they buy these animals from.

Mercusor trade deal

The EU agreed a trade deal with South American countries Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay in 2019 allowing 99,000t of South American beef into the EU on an annual basis at preferential tariff rates. With reports like this surfacing – and with South American production systems being constantly called into question in relation to deforestation – the merits of the deal has been questioned as Europe looks to press further environmental restrictions on its own producers.