Where’s the beef (coming from)? Not Brazil, for now
U.S. bans imports over safety concerns
The United States banned all imports of fresh beef from Brazil, citing food safety concerns.
The ban on the fifth-largest beef exporter to the USA will remain in place until Brazil takes “corrective action,” according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Brazil shipped about 152.7 million pounds of beef to the USA in 2016. Only Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Mexico exported more beef to the USA last year.
Since March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has been inspecting all meat products arriving from Brazil. U.S. officials refused entry to 11% of them, or about 1.9 million pounds, over “public health concerns, sanitary conditions and animal health issues,” the agency said. “That figure is substantially higher than the rejection rate of 1% of shipments from the rest of the world.”
Fresh beef from Brazil isn’t high-end steaks served at upscale restaurants or even midrange cuts found in supermarket meat cases. The vast majority is trimmings used in ground and processed products, such as ground beef and hot dogs, according to the North American Meat Institute, the packers and processors trade organization.
The ban is unlikely to affect consumer prices anytime soon because U.S. imports of Brazilian fresh beef are limited.
“It’s going to be difficult to feel if it lasts less than two weeks,” Mike Zuzolo, president of Global Commodity Analytics, a Kansas-based commodity research and brokerage firm, said of the ban. “There have been other times when we’ve had this kind of dust-up with a trading partner, and it usually takes a couple to three months to actually play out in the retail market.”
Five percent of all beef — chilled, frozen and cooked — imported to the USA is from Brazil, said Cassandra Fish, a cattle and beef market expert.