Brazil traces thousands of containers at sea to check origin of meat

The Minister-Counsellor added that before the scandal was discovered by the Brazilian side, the country had not received any complaint or feedback from partner countries on any incident of Brazilian meat being tainted.

“As part of our investigations, samples of product are being collected and will be analyzed by the Veterinary Services Laboratory and the Government Analytical Services Laboratory”, the BGIS quoted Dr Trotman as saying.

Brazil’s agriculture minister said earlier China suspended imports after investigators accused Brazilian inspectors of taking bribes to overlook expired meat and chemicals.

JD.com, one of China’s biggest online retailers, said in an emailed statement it had also removed all listings for imported Brazilian meat and is reviewing orders in process.

Brazil’s government fought Wednesday to save the country’s meat industry from getting burned in a corruption scandal that has prompted several countries to pull Brazilian beef and chicken from the menu.

“Officials from the department at all ports of entry which receive meat have been instructed to test every container of meat from Brazil”.

None of the meat processors implicated in the Brazil investigation, including the country’s two largest meat exporters, JBS and BRF, ship products to the U.S., FSIS said. China is the biggest export market for Brazilian meat, buying about a third of the US$5.5 billion of beef shipped from Latin America’s largest economy a year ago. SIF guarantees quality products to the Brazilian consumer.

Restaurants said they would have to pass to consumers the additional cost of using frozen meat from other countries, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reports.

Once lab samples are analyzed and products are found fit for human consumption, the meat and poultry will be released, MOPH said. On Tuesday exports plunged to just $74,000 compared to the daily average of $63 million, a drop of 99.9 percent, according to Brazil’s Trade Ministry. “And only six of them have exported in the past 60 days”, said Mr Temer.

“If we get assurance from the Brazilian departments that their investigation is limited to the 21 factories, we will respond accordingly by limiting the ban”, he told reporters.

Other countries, such as Japan, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile say that they support the measures taken by the Brazilian government, which suspended three slaughterhouses and prohibited exports from 18 other facilities targeted by investigations.