Brazilian beef producer Marfrig will re-open refrigeration units at two of its plants in the country, and expand four others, in a move it said would increase capacity by 25%.
The company will re-open units in Pirenópolis – in central Goiás state – and Nova Xavantina, which is in neighbouring Mato Grosso. It will also boost production at four other sites – in Goiás, Mato Grosso, Pará and Rondônia states – with a series of expansion plans.
In stark contrast to the country’s poultry processing sector, Brazil’s beef exporters have been enjoying a period of good business. A positive cycle of cattle retention and ‘the current macroeconomic scenario’, as Marfrig termed it, have left beef producers scrambling to increase their capabilities.
In June, rival beef producer Minerva Foods announced that it would re-open a cattle unit in Mato Grosso state from next month.
The latest commitment “is aligned with the company’s strategy for sustainable growth,” a spokesperson for Marfrig said.
It comes in the wake of Brazil’s so-called carne fraca scandal, in which some of the country’s largest poultry processors – including BRF and JBS – were accused of paying bribes to government health officials to overlook contaminated and even rotten shipments of meat.
There were concerns that the scandal would rock Brazil’s meat industry in the long term.
Many of the world’s major economies curtailed or suspended imports of Brazilian meat, after plants belonging to BRF and JBS – as well as smaller company Grupo Peccin – were targeted by police. At one point, at least 35 countries were involved in the restrictions, FoodBev reported in March.
But in April, officials from the Ministry of Development, Foreign Trade and Services (MDIC) claimed that ‘the worst had passed’, which noted that shipments quickly normalised following the scandal and total meat exports in the month of March actually grew.
And yesterday, a report from the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture found there was no evidence authorities knew about salmonella contamination in samples of poultry meat prior to it being exported to the European Union (EU).
According to the findings, the samples showed no signs of typhimurium or enteritidis – the two strains of salmonella dangerous to humans – suggesting that authorities had no cause to be suspicious about Brazilian exports of meat.
But the report will be taken with a pinch of salt, given government officials’ involvement in alleged corruption.
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