Several Caribbean countries have banned the sale of corned beef and importation of the meat product from Brazil, following reports that several meat processors in the South American country have allegedly been selling rotten beef and poultry.
Several other countries have gone as far as banning all meat and meat products from Brazil, where it is alleged that certain companies involved in the illegal practice paid hefty bribes to auditors in exchange for fraudulent sanitary license.
The European Union, China and Chile have decided to halt some meat imports from the South American country and Jamaica was the first Caribbean country to follow suit, with the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Agriculture and Fisheries saying the companies implicated by the Brazilian authorities supply 99.5 percent of the corned beef on the local market.
Besides the temporary ban in Jamaica, a temporary hold has been placed on all permits for the importation of corned beef from Brazil, and all corned beef products were pulled from the shelves of supermarkets.
Minister Karl Samuda called an emergency meeting with officials of the Ministry of Health, Consumers Affairs and the Bureau of Standards and the Jamaica Customs Agency to discuss the ban.
Trinidad and Tobago has also a taken a similar action by putting a temporary ban on corned beef.
