China lifts ban on shipments from 3 Brazil plants

Shipments to China from two JBS plants and one Aurora Alimentos plant in Brazil can resume after a ban on products from those plants was lifted. The ban was implemented in 2020 over COVID-19-related concerns.

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(Benjamin Ruiz)
(Benjamin Ruiz)

Shipments to China from two JBS plants and one Aurora Alimentos plant in Brazil can resume after a ban on products from those plants was lifted. The ban was implemented in 2020 over COVID-19-related concerns.

Both affected JBS plants, the company told Reuters, were in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. One was a poultry processing plant in Passo Fundo, while the other was a pork processing plant in Três Passos. The Aurora plant processes pork and is located in Santa Catarina.

The trade bans were put in place after the two plants had to temporarily halt production in 2020 after outbreaks of COVID-19 occurred among workers at the two facilities, despite the World Health Organization (WHO) stating that there is no evidence that people can catch COVID-19 through food or through food packaging.

With the lifting of those plant bans, China no longer has a ban on any of JBS’ Brazilian plants. JBS now has 25 plants in Brazil that are eligible to ship products to China, the company said.

JBS is the world’s largest poultry producer, having slaughtered more than 4 billion chickens in 2019. The company, headquartered in Brazil, is also a leading producer of beef and pork products on a global scale.

Aurora, the third largest poultry producer in Brazil, had earlier been targeted by Chinese officials over COVID-19 concerns. Officials in China alleged in August 2020 that a shipment of chicken wings from Brazilian company Aurora Alimentos tested positive for the coronavirus.

Other COVID concerns from China

JBS and Aurora are not the only companies to have had products from certain plants banned from China over concerns related to the coronavirus. The country also banned poultry products from the O.K. Foods plant in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in September 2020, and a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Springdale, Arkansas, in June 2020.

O.K. Foods is the U.S. subsidiary of Mexico’s largest poultry company, Bachoco. Tyson Foods, a company based in the United States, also has operations in China.

View our continuing coverage of the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic.

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