Tesco Urged to Cut Ties With Meat Supplier Over Amazon Deforestation [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

1h ago
Jessica Shankleman, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Tesco Plc is facing pressure to distance itself from the world’s top meat producer over its links to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

Environmental activists at Greenpeace plan to target Tesco and its shoppers from Wednesday through an online campaign in an effort to get the supermarket chain to end its relationship with subsidiaries of Brazil’s JBS SA.

Brazil will enter its annual fire season in August and data from its National Institute for Space Research showed blazes in Amazon, the world’s biggest rainforest, grew to 6,804 in July, a 28% increase from a year earlier.

While only a small percentage of the U.K.’s beef imports come from the Amazon region, Tesco is a key customer of poultry supplier Moy Park Holdings and pork processor Tulip Ltd., both of which are owned by a U.S. firm JBS owns a controlling stake in.

Tesco said it’s unfair to target companies that JBS have only brought recent interests in, while the grocer has a 40-year relationship with the suppliers.

Greenpeace accused Tesco of failing to tackle deforestation by pushing back its 2020 zero-deforestation pledge to 2025. Tesco said it backed the campaign to end deforestation but would continue to work with the companies.

More:
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/tesco-urged-to-cut-ties-with-meat-supplier-over-amazon-deforestation-1.1475539