England returns salmonella contaminated chicken to Brazil

The Brazilian government confirmed on Wednesday (07/03) that England returned 16 containers of chicken to Brazil due to the presence of salmonella in shipments. According to the Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina Dias, the European country returned a total of 1,400 tons of chicken meat, over 15 months.

The confirmation was available in the publication of an investigative report conducted by the website Repórter Brasil in partnership with the British newspaper The Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. According to the website, some of the shipments belonged to the country’s leading slaughterhouses, JBS and BRF Foods.

After being refused by Great Britain, the contaminated chicken was sold on the Brazilian market, as the country has a higher ceiling for salmonella traces than the EU components.

Largest frozen chicken exporter in the world

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Brazil is the largest exporter of frozen chicken in the world, but about one in five of its poultry runs the danger of contamination with the food poisoning virus salmonella. The country provides about US$1bn in poultry to Europe each year.

Salmonella bacteria reside in the bowels of poultry and cattle. Birds and animals can be infected through the feed, in incubators, or through feces during transportation to slaughterhouses, where slaughter and processing can also spread the infection. In humans, salmonella poisoning can be fatal, particularly in infants and the elderly.

In the UK, salmonella rates ranged from 1.5% to 2.2% between 2013 and 2017, according to the Food Standards Agency.

Alexandre Campos da Silva, who coordinates meat inspections for the Brazilian government, said that this is “not a risk” to human health because the bacteria die in the cooking process. However, salmonella can change hosts from contact with the raw chicken.

The following DataLiner graph shows Brazil’s chicken exports trend to the UK since Jan 2015:

Sources: Bureau of Investigative Journalism and MercoPress

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