Carrefour apologizes to Brazil for CEO’s remarks, and beef is headed back to its stores

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazilian beef was headed back to the shelves of Carrefour-owned grocery stores Tuesday after a brief boycott sparked by remarks from the French company’s chief executive about nations in the South America trade bloc Mercosur.

Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard apologized to Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture for social media posts in which he said that Mercosur nations had an unfair competitive advantage due to lower environmental and sanitary standards. Bompard was seeking to show support for French farmers angered over a potential trade deal with the bloc, which includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

“We know that Brazilian agriculture provides high-quality meat, complies with regulations and offers great flavor. If Carrefour France’s communication caused confusion and may have been interpreted as questioning our partnership with Brazilian agriculture or as a criticism of it, we apologize,” Bompard wrote.

The Brazilian ministry published his letter on its website Tuesday, along with a statement asserting that the country’s agricultural practices are “of exceptional quality and fully compliant with one of the world’s most stringent environmental legislations.”

Atacadao, a Brazilian food warehouse giant owned by Carrefour, said in a statement that it expected beef product restocking to “normalize” in coming days. Beef giants JBS and Marfrig were among the suppliers that had boycotted the French company.

Since last week, French farmers have protested against negotiations for an EU-Mercosur trade deal that would increase agricultural imports to EU countries from South America.

French farmers fear it will affect their livelihoods. An initial agreement was reached in 2019, but negotiations have faltered since then due to opposition that also includes some European governments.

Brazil’s agribusiness sector also fears that the pending European Union Deforestation Regulation will outlaw the sale of forest-derived products within the EU’s 27-nation bloc if companies can’t prove their goods are not linked to deforestation. Its scope includes soy and cattle, Brazil’s top agricultural exports. Almost half of the country’s cattle is raised in the Amazon region, where 90% of deforested land since 1985 has turned into pasture, according to MapBiomas, a nonprofit network. The date of its implementation remains uncertain.

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Fabiano Maisonnave, The Associated Press