U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue yesterday announced the suspension of all imports of fresh beef from Brazil because of recurring concerns about the safety of the products intended for the American market. In the wake of the Brazilian government...
Brazilian Beef Exports | Sharp Cuts in Top Markets
Brazilian beef exports have paid a price for Operation Weak Flesh, the Brazilian government investigation into alleged bribery of food-sanitation inspectors. [See Brazilian Meat Exports Skewered.] The investigation culminated in March with charges against 21 meat...
Brazilian Meat Exports Skewered by Operation Weak Flesh
Brazilian meat exports have taken a big hit. On March 17, Brazil’s federal police raided meat packers accused of paying off inspectors to okay rotten and adulterated meat for market, capping a two-year investigation into official corruption dubbed “Operation Weak...
Exporting the Brazilian Spirit, Cachaça
Is it serendipity or part of the Plano Brasil Maior to expand markets for Brazilian products? The World Cup’s opening day is also International Cachaça Day. Cachaça is Brazil’s national (distilled) spirit. And it is indeed one of the export products promoted by the...
Brazil’s In-Balance Trade Offers One Sweet Saving Opportunity
by Brian J. McCormick, guest columnist As promised last time, Chemcost’s search for “The New Cheap”* changes course this month and heads south to Brazil. What we find is that Brazil’s trade in the 10 chemical commodities that make up Datamyne’s US Best Price Benchmark...
Not So Invisible Hand Stirs Ethanol
Government policies shape biofuels markets Sometime around the middle of last year, the US surged ahead of Brazil to become the world’s highest-volume exporter of ethanol. According to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), the US boosted...
The Latin American Decade
LATAM may be on course for growth, but diversification is needed Writing in the Miami Herald earlier this month, Andres Oppenheimer asks whether 2011 will be the dawn of the “Latin American decade” – as a recent Standard & Poor’s webcast argues [you can access a...