The government has loosed controls on meat imports coming from Brazil to Great Britain, following an audit of the South American country’s sanitary and phytosanitary regulatory system.
Additional controls on Brazilian meat imports had been in place since 2017, when the UK was part of the EU, after Brazil identified shortcomings in its sanitary and phytosanitary regulatory system.
As of July 20, these additional controls will no longer be required to export affected commodities from Brazil to Great Britain.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said that the audit found that these shortcomings had been “fully addressed”.
The audit focused on the Brazilian system for inspecting products of animal origin, notably beef and poultry, and was the first British audit mission abroad after Brexit.
Commenting, a Defra spokesperson said: “Following a recent audit with Brazilian authorities, we assessed that shortcomings in their sanitary and phytosanitary regulatory system had been fully addressed.
“This means that additional controls on affected Brazilian food commodities will be removed later this month.”
The spokesperson added that Defra remains “committed” to maintaining its “existing high standards for food imports”.
The Brazilian government added that the UK also announced the ‘regionalisation’ of Brazil at state level in relation to avian influenza (bird flu).
This means that any potential future outbreaks of bird flu in Brazil won’t result in the British market closing for all Brazilian poultry meat products, but only for those coming from the state where the disease has been identified.
Brazilian meat exports to GB
The UK will now place its trust in Brazil’s system of reviewing the sanitary and phytosanitary status of exporting establishments, which Brazil calls its “pre-registration” list.
According to the Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA), Brazil’s national institutional organisation for poultry and pork production, under the system, all companies that wish to ship chicken meat to the UK market must be approved by the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, and no longer by individual qualification missions of establishments carried out by the authorities of the European country.
The British missions, from now on, will focus on revalidating the Brazilian inspection system, it added.
President of the ABPA, Ricardo Santin, said this is a “demonstration of the high confidence of the UK authorities in the Brazilian inspection system”.
Director of markets from ABPA, Luis Rua added: “From a marketing point of view, the return to the pre-listing system will potentially allow more Brazilian companies to access what is one of the largest consumer markets in the world, guaranteeing greater access and more marketing options to Brazilian exporters.”
According to Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Brazil exported US$ 282.2 million in poultry meat and around US$ 134.5 million in beef to the UK in 2022.
Since Brexit, it said Brazilian agricultural exports to the UK have increased by 67%, reaching US$ 1.8 billion in 2022. The ABPA said that the UK is Brazil’s fifth-largest importer of poultry product.
According to Defra, the UK imported £334.1 million worth of meat and meat preparations from Brazil in 2022.
Brazil’s government also welcomed the lifting of the additional controls “with satisfaction”.
“The decision reflects the solid partnership between Brazil and the UK, adopting a precautionary approach in order to preserve trade between the two countries,” it said.
