This food paradise accounts for half of Brazil’s beef offal exports
Foodthink’s Take
How can we trace whether beef comes from deforested pastures? Are businesses and consumers fully aware of the social and environmental impacts of their products? What environmental cost is hidden within the daily consumption of ordinary people? These are the questions this report seeks to answer.
*This article was jointly published by Repórter Brasil and the Hong Kong Free Press. The original piece was first published on 31 March 2024 and edited by Tom Grundy. Foodthink has been authorised to translate and republish it. Click the “link” to read the original report.
At first glance, a few nondescript office spaces in Hong Kong seem to have nothing in common with the world’s largest tropical rainforest. However, according to supply chain data provided to the *Hong Kong Free Press* (HKFP) by the non-profit organisation Repórter Brasil, at least four Hong Kong companies imported beef products from a rancher described by Brazilian police as the “greatest destroyer of the Amazon rainforest.”
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) states that “in almost every Amazonian country, cattle ranching is the primary driver of deforestation.” Approximately 17% of the Amazon rainforest has undergone land-use changes—forests have been cleared to create pastures and build roads to transport Brazilian beef to global markets.
Rancher Bruno Heller has profited from the illegal clearing of the Amazon. Ranches owned by the Heller family have been fined $5 million for illegal deforestation, and Heller himself has been accused by the Brazilian Federal Police of clearing 6,500 hectares of forest vegetation—nearly five times the area of Hong Kong’s Lamma Island.
1. Traceable, but is it sustainable?
In late January 2024, a CFS spokesperson told the paper that these processing plants “must comply with food safety requirements related to imported products, such as ensuring products are fit for human consumption and comply with the regulations of both the exporting country and Hong Kong.”
When asked whether the sustainability of imported agricultural products was considered, the CFS stated the following month: “Hygiene conditions, humane slaughter, meat handling, processing, production, storage and transport should also be regulated.” However, no detailed explanation of the evaluation process was provided.
“Currently, there are not many requirements in Brazilian international trade regarding the social and environmental impacts of products,” Marina Guyot, public policy manager at the non-profit organisation Imaflora, told the paper during a telephone interview in Brazil in February 2024.
To prevent the import of products linked to deforestation risks, the European Union introduced regulations in 2023 aimed at “reducing the EU’s contribution to global deforestation and forest degradation”. These regulations, which will take effect by the end of 2024, target commodities such as beef, soy, and palm oil exported to the EU from areas deforested after 31 December 2020.
Despite the popularity of this policy, it is not expected to have a significant impact on Brazilian export demand, as many Brazilian products are shipped to Asia. Guyot noted, “European countries account for only 5% of Brazil’s total exports, and an even smaller share of total production.”
By contrast, Hong Kong has a massive demand for Brazilian beef. Although Hong Kong is small, with a population of 7.5 million—far fewer than the EU’s 448 million—it is the largest buyer of Brazilian beef offal.
According to Brazilian trade data, in 2022, Hong Kong imported frozen beef offal worth $253.65 million from Brazil, accounting for 48% of Brazil’s total exports of such products.
II. The Source of Ambiguity
In late November 2023, we visited these companies, but found very little information. Galaila International is located in an ageing 1980s office building in Central, while Loyalty Union Asia overlooks Hong Kong’s main container port from an industrial building; only these two companies had operating entities that could be located via their signage.
Harvest Charm’s registered address is in an ordinary office building in Sheung Wan, and Uni Shining’s is in an industrial space in Tuen Mun. However, there was no evidence on-site that these business entities existed. Uni Shining’s office space appeared to be occupied by a wedding florist.
Records from the Hong Kong Companies Registry provided no further information regarding these companies’ activities. Of the four, only Galaila International has a website, which presents them as a leather supplier. The other three companies have no websites, social media presence, or branding.
Requests for comment sent to all four companies went unanswered. An employee at Galaila International stated over the phone that she would pass the reporter’s contact details to her superior, but there was no further response. Mail sent to Uni Shining International Trading was returned marked “unclaimed”.
In 2019, Greenpeace (Greenpeace) discovered that nearly a third of the beef in Hong Kong came from ranches in deforested areas of the Amazon rainforest, and called on major supermarkets to stop selling “deforestation meat”.
The response from several major supermarkets, including AEON, Yadong, and City’Super, was that they did not, or rarely did, sell Brazilian beef. ParknShop later responded that they would change suppliers once their existing stock of (Brazilian) meat was sold out.
“It is truly disheartening that after years of advocacy… these meat products are still available in Hong Kong,” Tom Ng of the Greenpeace Hong Kong office told our reporter in late January 2024.
“Hong Kong is one of the largest importers of deforestation meat. We have been calling on businesses to stop importing, or at least stop importing products that have already been flagged as problematic,” Mr Ng said.
In February 2024, among the supermarkets we visited on the ground, only Wellcome was selling Brazilian beef. In early March, DFI Retail Group, Wellcome’s parent company, replied via email to relevant inquiries, stating: “Wellcome’s procurement complies with local regulations and is committed to sustainability.”
The group added that they were “aware of the increasing discussion surrounding environmental issues” and were “seriously reviewing their supplier network”.
Subsequent online verification revealed that ParknShop also sells Brazilian beef products. We have contacted the supermarket chain for a response.
According to data from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong imported 316.7 million kilograms of Brazilian meat products in 2023, of which 34.9 million kilograms were “beef” and 8 million kilograms were “meat and edible offal”.
In February 2024, when asked why the demand for Brazilian beef offal in Hong Kong was so high, Mr Louis Chan, Deputy Director of Research at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, told “Brazil Report” that Hong Kong “is world-renowned for its open and free trade system… this makes Hong Kong an excellent international commodity trading hub.”
Mr Chan wrote in an email: “Undoubtedly, Brazilian beef offal… has a strong market in Asia. Offal can be consumed directly, or used in the food industry, the pet food industry, and the production of feed required for local agriculture and livestock.”
He also mentioned the per capita meat consumption in Hong Kong. A 2018 study by the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong showed that the per capita meat consumption in Hong Kong is 664 grams per day, “equivalent to two 10-ounce steaks”, Mr Chan added.
However, not all Brazilian beef imports remain in Hong Kong. Mr Chen cited government data showing that Brazilian beef offal valued at US$342 million was re-exported from Hong Kong, with 50.3% going to Vietnam, 29.9% to Taiwan, and 15.4% to South Korea.
III. Final Destination: Mainland China?
“Hong Kong does not only consume Brazilian beef; it also serves as an entry point for products imported into China… but this process has not been properly tracked,” she said.
In December 2023, Alcides Torres of Scot Consultoria, one of Brazil’s largest meat industry consultancies, expressed a similar view in an interview with Repórter Brasil: “Some products exported to Hong Kong may be transshipped to Mainland China.”
According to World Bank World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) data, China’s beef offal imports in 2022 primarily came from Uruguay, the US, and New Zealand. Brazil was not on the list, as its products of this type have not yet been approved by the General Administration of Customs of China.
CFS regulations state that meat products re-exported from Hong Kong to Mainland China or Macau “must hold an official health certificate issued by the country of origin, explicitly stating that the Mainland/Macau is the final destination of the consignment”. Macau is the third-largest re-export market for Brazilian beef and offal from Hong Kong; Mainland China does not appear on the list.
Smuggling activity peaked in 2022. That year, Hong Kong police seized 403 tonnes of smuggled frozen meat, valued at approximately HK$61 million, and arrested 46 people. Media reports at the time indicated that Brazilian beef offal was among the seized products.
Data provided to this publication by the police shows that such seizures declined in 2023, with 52 tonnes of suspected smuggled frozen meat, valued at HK$11 million, seized in only four cases.
IV. Sustainability: Applying Pressure from the Demand Side
In February 2024, Lei Yu-ting, a researcher at Greenpeace East Asia, told Repórter Brasil via email that awareness among Hong Kong consumers regarding whether meat products are sustainable “is slowly rising, but not enough to change consumption behaviour and industry supply chains,” he added.
Mr Lei also stated, “When Hong Kong consumers consider whether meat products are sustainable and traceable, they are more concerned with meat quality and food safety. It is difficult for consumers to determine if the meat they consume is linked to land destruction and deforestation in countries like Brazil.”
Mr Ng of Greenpeace Hong Kong added that while public pressure is important, policy changes are more necessary. “Transparency and traceability in the industrial chain are crucial and require joint efforts from all parties.” He believes that governments, schools, NGOs, and the media should also actively carry out public education on the relationship between meat consumption and deforestation.
“I don’t know if it’s feasible for government or corporate policies to directly ban such products,” Mr Ng continued, “but that is exactly what we hope to see.”
At the Brazilian NGO Imaflora, Guyot and her colleagues are working towards this goal. In cooperation with the Brazilian Public Prosecutor’s Office, the organisation has established a monitoring system called “Beef on Track”, aimed at creating supply chains free from “socio-environmental violations”, including deforestation on indigenous lands and forced labour.
Of the 158 slaughterhouses in the Brazilian Amazon, 110 have signed the “Beef on Track” agreement, which requires abattoirs to ensure that their direct suppliers comply with human rights and sustainability standards. Given the complex upstream and downstream relationships in the beef industry, the system is not perfect, as it only monitors the behaviour of suppliers who sell directly to the slaughterhouse. Nevertheless, it is a start.
Between 2018 and 2023, the slaughterhouse “163 Beef”, the focus of investigations by Repórter Brasil and this publication, sourced cattle from farms linked to Heller and his family more than 20 times and sold beef offal to these four Hong Kong companies. “163 Beef” has not yet signed the “Beef on Track” agreement and has not responded to requests for comment.
Heller, through a defence lawyer shared with his daughter, issued a statement claiming that “since the 1970s, their family has peacefully and undisturbedly owned family property in the countryside of Pará state.”
The statement added: “The facts involved in the current investigation are strictly confidential”. It remains unclear which specific investigation he is referring to.
“We are committed to… promoting green trade between China and Brazil, and naturally including Hong Kong,” Guyot said. “If Mainland China and Hong Kong were also to sign the Beef on Track agreement, it would greatly incentivise local Brazilian meat companies and the industry to sign it.”
Translation: qiqi
Proofreading: Zein