"Despite lawsuit, Casino Group still sells beef from Amazonian Indigenous territory", 13 July 2023

...In March 2021, a lawsuit was filed in France against French group Casino Guichard-Perrachon, which controls supermarket chains Pão de Açúcar, Assaí and Extra Hiper, for selling meat from suppliers directly linked to illegal deforestation in the Amazon, including farms located in the Burareiro area.

The case falls under the 2017 so-called Vigilance Law, according to which large corporations based in Brazil must ensure that “both their subsidiaries and their subcontracted companies” do not cause “severe violations of human rights and fundamental liberties or harms to people’s health and safety, and the environment.”

While Casino claimed in the French court that it has a strict system of control over its supply chain, its stores in Brazil keep selling meat from cattle raised in protected areas. That is described in a new investigation by the InfoAmazonia Geojournalism Laboratory conducted in partnership with the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA)....

Data from documents known as Animal Transit Registrations (GTAs) indicate that JBS’ slaughter plants...received animals from the Indigenous land and other protected areas after March 2021, when Indigenous peoples from Brazil and Colombia, with support from international NGOs, filed a lawsuit against Casino in France...

In most cattle transactions analyzed, animals were not transferred directly from farms located in the Indigenous land to JBS. However, after they transited through different farms and arrived at meatpacking plants, it was no longer possible to tell the difference between those that came from the Indigenous land and others...

Questioned by InfoAmazonia, JBS stated that it “cannot monitor the other links of its supply chain” and therefore cannot guarantee control over the entire supply chain since its origin...

The investigation also found that the supply chains of Pão de Açúcar, Assaí and Extra supermarkets received cattle that could have come from the Sete de Setembro and Igarapé Lage Indigenous lands and several conservation units, including the Jaci-Paraná Extractive Reserve, the Rio Preto-Jacundá Extractive Forest and the Guajará-Mirim State Park, all in Rondônia...

The Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Territory is among the most deforested Indigenous lands in the Amazon...

When questioned, the Casino Group informed in a note that its suppliers are required to detail the supply route and that “it directly rechecks all farms based on batches in order to verify their socio-environmental compliance.”

However, the group said it would be up to meatpackers to monitor indirect suppliers in line with their Socio and Environmental Beef Purchasing Policy...