The Agriculture Ministry said Friday that Lebanon hadn’t received any contaminated Brazilian meat and has banned imports from the institutions involved in the meat scandal.
“After investigating the matter, we were told by the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture that [Lebanon hadn’t received any] exported [meat] from the [affected] plants,” a statement released by the Agriculture Ministry said.
It said that the ministry has been adamant in implementing the required sanitary procedures for imports based on international standards, scientific data and analysis.
“We [the ministry] banned imports from the affected institutions.”
Brazilian federal police raided some of the country’s largest food corporations following accusations that employees had bribed inspectors to allow meat contaminated with salmonella to be exported to Europe and tainted meat to be served at public schools.
The accusations include two of Brazil’s largest corporations, JBS SA and BRF SA. The companies have denied any wrongdoing and authorities have said that no cases of death or illness have been linked to the tainted meat investigation.
JBS is one of the world’s largest meat processors and BRF is a major exporter to Asia and the Middle East.
Between January and April 2016 alone, Brazil’s exports to Arab countries were worth $3.46 billion; over half the exports were meat products and sugar.
In recent days, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, China, the European Union, South Korea and Chile have announced partial or all-out bans on Brazilian meat imports.
