How British chicken is destroying the Amazon

US food company JBS’ subsidary Seara supplies chicken to British supermarkets, schools and hospitals

Chicken sold in British supermarkets has been linked to deforestation in the Amazon, a new investigation has found.

The study claims that suppliers of corn and soya beans used to feed chickens produced by the US food processing company JBS – the world’s largest meat firm – are connected with deforested regions in the Amazon and the Cerrado.

JBS exports Brazilian beef, pork and chicken to companies around the world, including Europe, China and the Middle East.

The UK imported at least $500 (£444m) of Seara products – a subsidiary of JBS – over the last three years to wholesalers, food service and processing companies, which supply supermarkets, schools, hospitals and care homes.

Seara chicken, which produces more than five million birds a day from its Brazilian poultry farms, supplies some of the world's biggest supermarkets and fast-food chains.

The joint investigation by Reporter Brasil and Ecostorm, published on Thursday, states that this is the first time that chicken produced in Brazil and exported to the UK has been linked to deforestation.

“This investigation shows that the purchasing procedures applied have blind spots and still cannot fully prevent mechanisms of grain laundering,” it said.

In response, JBS told Reporter Brasil that it requires its grain suppliers to meet high standards and be signatories to the soy moratorium, which bans the sale of soya grown on land deforested after 2008.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon during the first half of 2022 broke all records, and was 80 per cent larger than the same period in 2018, the year before President Jair Bolsonaro took office. This is according to analysis from the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, or IPAM, a Brazilian nonprofit.

According to IPAM, around half of the felling occurred on public land, alongside illegal real estate and timber transactions and a lack of enforcement.

Ane Alencar, IPAM’s science director, said: “Those who control the Amazon don’t want it preserved. The standing forest has no value in today’s Amazon.“