There were ten separate batches of frozen chicken from Brazil rejected by the UK, Netherlands and Germany between April and June 2018.
The recalls were said to relate to ‘serious risk of salmonella’. Four of the recalls were made by the UK, four from the Netherlands and two from Germany, according to food recall experts Stericycle Expert Solutions.
Stericycle Expert Solutions’ quarterly Recall and Notification Index collects data from Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) each quarter, and then uses the findings to monitor risks to public health from the food chain.
Farzad Henareh, VP commercial & business development, at Stericycle Expert Solutions, said: “Brazil has been lobbying the European Union for months, trying in vain to get the restrictions around poultry and meat exports lifted to bring the industry back to equilibrium.
“These latest findings show that a serious risk remains and, unfortunately for Brazil, these rejections will not help with their fight to trade as they have done previously in the EU.”
Brazil appealed EU sanctions on poultry imports to the World Trade Organisation in April this year.
Henareh continues: “The silver lining for both supermarkets and consumers is that meat products rejected at the border due to presenting a serious risk to consumers will not make it onto our dinner plates.
“That said, only time will tell who will emerge triumphant in the ongoing political argument. And as we move towards a potentially hard Brexit, we have to ensure that we have a robust system in place to prevent dangerous meat from making it into the UK.”
The decision to place restrictions on the country was taken by the EU after Brazilian authorities began investigating 20 BRF plants and laboratories which had allegedly covered up the presence of salmonella.
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
