Meat trade bodies in Brazil have played down fears of beef and poultry from the country flooding the UK market after the National Farmers’ Union yesterday called for the UK government to mirror a proposed EU ban on Brazilian animal products due to come into force on 3 September.
The NFU warned there was a risk of exposing the UK market to imports from Brazil that could pose a threat to human health and undermine progress in tackling antimicrobial resistance.
It follows moves by the EU, proposed in May, to restrict imports of Brazilian products of animal origin, including beef and chicken, over worries of the use of antibiotics in the country’s agricultural industry.
The NFU said yesterday the EU ban without action in the UK could prompt a significant influx of Brazilian beef and poultry imports originally intended for the European bloc.
“There is a real risk that Brazilian beef and poultry originally destined for the EU could be diverted to the UK market, distorting trade and putting additional pressure on domestic producers,” NFU president Tom Bradshaw added.
However, the presidents of the Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA) and Brazilian Beef Exporters Association (ABIEC), which collectively represents poultry, pork and beef producers, exclusively told The Grocer there was no plan to sell more meat products in the UK from 3 September onwards.
Speaking to The Grocer at the biennial animal protein trade fair (SIAVS 2026) held in São Paulo this week, ABPA president Ricardo Santin said there was no excess poultry shipped to the UK in 2025 during a four-month pause on exports to the EU following a case of avian influenza in Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil.
“[The decision to sell more products to the UK] depends only on the UK importers,” he added.
“The EU closed the market to Brazil for four months in 2025 and we didn’t flood the UK in that time because we had more than 150 countries to redirect supply to.”
ABIEC president Roberto Perosa said: “The Brazilian beef plan aims to boost beef consumption. However, targeting the UK or European markets is not part of our specific plan. We want to stimulate the consumption of Brazilian beef in Asia. Our plan isn’t to send huge volumes to the UK, or to the EU.”
Perosa also warned the UK against taking “protectionist measures” similar to the EU.
“While the volume of trade with the UK isn’t massive in terms of Brazil’s total output, it is significant for our image and for price setting,” he told The Grocer.
“I believe governments need to keep talking; it makes no sense for a sudden ban to be imposed on Brazil – a major global protein supplier – without proper dialogue.
“We have strong trade ties with Europe and the UK, and taking things to extremes doesn’t serve a global society that is already facing great difficulties.”
Brazil is an important meat supplier to the EU, making up about a quarter of chicken imports to the bloc and 25% of its beef imports.
The UK was also the 14th largest destination for Brazilian chicken meat in 2025, importing mainly boneless cuts such as breast fillets. It took 127,000 metric tonnes from Brazil last year – a rise of 39% on 2024, according to ABPA figures. In the first six months of 2026, the UK imported 55,000 tonnes of chicken meat from Brazil, down 11% on the same period of 2025.
Beef from Brazil is at a much lower volume for the UK, with almost 29,000 tonnes imported in 2025, mainly destined for processors to manufacture burgers, lasagne ready meals and other processed products, according to ABIEC. Volumes slipped 2.9% year on year to 12,500 tonnes in the first six months of 2026.
In comparison, Brazil ships almost 100,000 tonnes of beef and more than 200,000 tonnes of chicken annually to the EU.
The EU formally confirmed in June that Brazil would be removed from a list of approved exporter countries for animal products, also including fish and honey, on 3 September. It followed a decision by an EU committee in May to ban Brazil because of alleged non-compliance with rules governing the use of antimicrobials in animal production to boost growth promotion and yield improvement.
The use of antibiotics for growth promotion has been banned in the UK and EU since 2006.
The UK government opted not to follow the EU’s ruling, preferring to undertake its own independent evidenced-based assessment of Brazil’s use of antimicrobials assurance arrangements.
Brazil’s imports of meats into the UK continue to be permitted while the review takes place, with no date yet set for a decision to be made.
The NFU said yesterday that Brazil had so far been “unable to demonstrate that it is adhering to EU rules” ahead of the 3 September deadline.
The union stressed a failure to mirror any EU ban in the UK risked eroding public trust in the food sold in Britain and would also undermine UK farmers’ “world-leading work on antimicrobial resistance”, with potential impacts for public health.
“A key responsibility of government is to ensure that products entering the UK are safe and do not pose a public health risk,” NFU president Tom Bradshaw added.
“Unless there is full confidence that Brazilian meat has been produced responsibly, the government should take the same precautionary approach as the EU and ban the import of Brazilian products. It should also increase the frequency of testing for products entering the UK from high and medium risk countries such as Brazil.
“If it does not, there are wider reputational risks for the British beef and poultry sectors. Public confidence could be undermined if consumers believe the UK is importing beef or poultry meat that the EU has deemed unsafe.”
Santin said he understood the worries of UK producers but added there was a lack of information about how the Brazilian poultry industry operated.
“It’s important to say the problem between Brazil and European Union is not that we don’t apply the rules,” he added. “We already segregate. We already don’t use antimicrobials as growth promoters in our production that is exported to UK and EU. The EU is asking for more layers of supervision to just check what we already do.
“I understand the thinking [in the UK] that Brazil needs to obey the same rules the UK farmers obey, but maybe they don’t know we already obey this.
“For the UK, we only export what is segregated without growth promoters.”
A Defra spokeswoman told The Grocer: “We are actively working with industry and Brazilian authorities to assess any risks posed by Brazilian beef imports and will always act to protect our farmers.
“This builds on our existing, world-leading import controls which are in place to protect animal and public health.”
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