Everything seemed perfect for Brazil when the avian influenza came up in the United States, China, Chile and several other countries. Brazilian traders expected an estimation of an additional 500

Brazil’s government is still fighting to stand back up from the catastrophic incident.

,000 to 650,000 metric tons in the world. It was a huge bonus for Brazil with their competitors gone for a while. Their only mission was to keep their country safe from the avian influenza. However, Brazil was confronted with a whole new and unexpected problem. Police in Brazil caught some of the poultry factories bribing health inspectors to make them cooperate processing rotten meat. Brazilian frozen chicken accounts for approximately 40 percent of the total frozen chicken trade following the United States for the second biggest exporter of chicken meat. The world’s No.1 supplier has been banned for exporting tainted-meat all over the world. Now the world is left with a huge hole of chicken suppliers since the U.S. is also suffering supplying chickens due to avian influenza. Other countries are striving to fill the spot but with the two biggest suppliers for chicken gone, the chicken market is still struggling to fill the void.

Chicken sales to Arab nations went over $574 million in January and February which is a significant figure regrading that total exports for Brazilian chicken was $1.8 billion. Brazil exported over 744,000 tons of frozen chicken to Saudi Arabia making it the second biggest importer. However, Saudi Arabia has also suspended chicken imports from Brazil and the authorities recommended consumers to avoid the investigated factories for tainted chickens. Furthermore, Hong Kong and China combined, the largest importer for Brazilian chicken, has also suspended any meat purchases from South American countries. The government is persuading the world that the scandal is just an isolated episode and trying to minimize the economic damage as much as possible. Unfortunately, the consequences of the two biggest importers gone, Brazil’s poultry sales dropped drastically to minus 99.9 percent which gave a huge impact to Brazil’s economy.

On the other hand, South Korea lifted a temporary ban on sales of Brazil chicken after Brazil stated not a single tainted chicken was exported to South Korea. It seems that the tainted chickens produced in the unconscious factories went to other countries all over the world such as Hong kong and the EU. The lift of the ban in South Korea was good news for Brazil since more than 80 percent of the frozen chicken imported to South Korea is from Brazil. However, South Korea is still keeping an eye on the imported chickens and continuing inspections. It was shocking news to South Korean consumers when they heard that a fast food franchiser in Korea, ‘Mom’s Touch’ has been using chicken imported from Brazil. Fortunately, they have stopped using Brazilian chicken. The company’s official said, "It is true that we have used chicken bought from Brazil's BRF, but we stopped using it at all after the news was out.”

Brazil’s government is still fighting to stand back up from the catastrophic incident. Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said, “What we are suffering now is a blow, a punch to the stomach. We have to recover, to reorganize our forces, to travel around the world and to show that what happened here was that a few people did wrong but that the system or the industry was not at fault."

Jeong Seung-in  samcandothat@naver.com

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