soy I

Soybean meal is used in food and animal feeds, principally as a protein supplement, but also as a source of metabolizable energy.

Approximately 76% of global soy production goes towards feeding livestock, 28.1% of which goes to feeding pigs. In the UK, nearly 90% of soy imports are used for animal feed – the majority of which is consumed by the industrial pig and poultry sector. (1)

The land-use footprint of soy production globally is estimated at 131 million hectares – about one third the size of the European Union.(1)

soy II

A significant proportion of the world’s soy comes from high biodiversity regions such as the Amazon and the Cerrado biomes in Brazil, and the Gran Chaco forest spanning across Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina, which continue to be particularly vulnerable to high rates of deforestation.(1)

The BR-163 road, known as the “Soya highway”, linking Cuiabá in the biggest soybean producing state in Brazil, Mato Grosso, to Cargill’s soya export terminal in Santarém, in the state of Para, is one of the main highways cutting through the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

In 2021, 5.9 million tonnes of soy and 2.5 million tonnes of maize were handled at Santarém port.(2)

JBS

Brazilian meat giant JBS is the biggest meat company in the world, notorious for driving forest destruction in places like the Amazon, as well as other climate critical ecosystems in South America. A new study(3) revealed that cattle producers that potentially sell to JBS cover 9.7 million hectares of land exposed to deforestation risk. That includes acres that have been deforested between 2008 and 2021 and under risk of deforestation until 2025. This makes JBS’ the meatpacker most exposed to deforestation risk in Brazil’s Amazon region, where pasture lands, for livestock grazing, cover 90% of deforested areas. JBS S.A. is planning to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange, which would give the company access to more money to expand while handing over almost complete control to the notoriously corrupt Batista family.

JBS S.A. controls Pilgrim’s UK, the leading pork producer in the UK, it provides consumers nearly 7 million 4 oz. pig meat servings daily.(4)

Cargill

Cargill is the UK’s largest importer of soy from Brazil and South America and the largest private company in the US. In 2018, Cargill ranked the third largest meat processor worldwide, with revenues of $115bn and the third largest greenhouse gas emitter of all global livestock companies(5). In 2022, its revenues went up to $177 billion.(6)

The world’s largest agricultural companies, like Cargill and JBS, benefit significantly from the trade in global commodities with its roots in colonialism – a system which produces vast profits for them. This comes at the expense of the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous Communities in Brazil and across South America, and the consequences for the climate emergency are dramatic.(7)


Barclays

Between 2015 and 2020, global meat and dairy companies received over $478 billion in backing by over 2,500 investment firms, banks, and pension funds headquartered around the globe.(8)

High street British banks such as Barclays and HSBC provide billions in loans to industrial meat firms.(8)

Barclays was the world’s largest identified creditor to the world’s largest meat processor, JBS, from 2015 to 2022 – providing £4.8 billion worth of corporate loans, bond issuances and revolving credit facilities to JBS and its subsidiaries.(9)

UK soy import

The UK imports around 3 million tonnes of soya each year to feed pigs and other industrially farmed animals (chickens and dairy cows). Two thirds of UK soya imports come from countries in South America, where its expansion drives deforestation and human rights abuses.

Liverpool docks is the main gateway for soya entering the UK via Cargill, a major industrial supplier of commodities for animal feed.

Cargill reached its highest revenue ever in its 158-year history in 2022 at about $177 billion.(6)

A recent investigation linked chicken and pork products sold in Tesco stores and fed on Cargill’s soy to the recent, illegal fires and deforestation of 400 hectares of Brazilian Amazon rainforest, equivalent to 560 Wembley football pitches, and the loss of more than 220,000 trees.(2)

DEFRA

The UK government has failed to ban imports of products linked to deforestation and degradation of forest and vital ecosystems. Despite promises at COP 26 in Glasgow, the Environment Act 2021, which bans imports of products linked to illegal deforestation, hasn’t even come into force yet. Billions of pounds from UK finance are allowed to bankroll nature destruction abroad.

Ignoring the recommendations of its own experts, the Government also failed to adopt measures to reduce meat and dairy production and consumption in its Food Strategy published in June 2022. While over 10 million tonnes of food go to waste annually, the government has scrapped plans for mandatory food waste reporting and it maintains rules in place that prevent the feeding of livestock on food waste - unnecessarily maintaining the dependency on soya and animal feed imports.(10)

Meat Processors

The 3 largest pig meat processors in the UK are: Cranswick PLC, Karro Food Group and Pilgrim’s UK, JBS.

Cranswick reportedly slaughters around 50,000 pigs per week.(11)

The Karro Food Group claims to slaughter 45,000 pigs per week.(11)

JBS S.A. controls Pilgrim’s UK, the leading pork producer in the UK. Pilgrim’s says it provides consumers nearly 7,000,000 daily servings of 4 ounces of pig meat each.(4)



Pigs

Around 10 million pigs in the UK are bred each year for food, from around 400,000 breeding sows (female pigs).(12)

In 2017, there were about 10,000 pig farms in the UK but around 90% of production comes from about 1,000 assured farms (those participating in a scheme demonstrating that the food they have produced has met specific, independently certified standards at each stage of the supply chain). These include 10 corporate companies which account for 35% of the breeding sows.(11)

Modern sows have an average of 14.2 piglets born alive per litter.(13) In contrast, wild pigs have 3 to 4 piglets per year.(14) Sows are slaughtered at the end of their production period, at 1-1.5 years old, having had an average of 3-5 litters.(15) 

Pork production

Domestic production of pork in England covers 40% of domestic consumption, and the imports for cheaper industrial pig meat, mostly from Denmark, are on the rise.(12,16)

The biggest pork producer in Europe, ‘Danish Crown’ is opening up its first new processing facility in Rochdale in the Greater Manchester area since the sale of Tulip to JBS’ Pilgrim Pride in 2019. The facility will be solely supplied with imported Danish pork, to offer a lower price point than British producers.(1)

In 2021, Danish Crown was forced to drop ‘climate-controlled pig’ label, after a greenwashing row in Denmark [after Greenpeace Denmark complained to consumers Ombusdman accusing the company of greenwashing and misleading marketing]. In June 2021, three Denmark-based non-profit organisations filed (18) Denmark’s first climate lawsuit against Danish Crown, accusing the company of spreading false claims about the climate impact of meat. A new investigation has revealed in November 2023(19), that a report about the climate footprint of pork was changed at Danish Crown’s request, before it was published by Aarhus University in October 2019. The lawsuit continues.

TESCO

Tesco is the biggest seller of industrially produced meat and dairy in the UK. Tesco acknowledges a reduction in meat and dairy is necessary to meet its climate targets(20.) – yet it has set no targets for such reduction, deflecting responsibility to its customers. Tesco’s reported operating profits for 2022/23 were £2.6 billion.(21)

Despite promising to phase out products from deforestation for over a decade, its supply chain is still riddled with soya and it still buys from suppliers owned by Brazilian meat giant JBS. After failing to deliver on its promise to phase out deforestation by 2020,

Tesco says it will know where its soya comes from by 2025.(22)

A recent investigation linked chicken and pork products sold in Tesco stores and fed on Cargill’s soy to the recent, illegal fires and deforestation of 400 hectares of Brazilian Amazon rainforest, equivalent to 560 Wembley football pitches, and the loss of more than 220,000 trees.(2)


Pork products

In 2021, each British citizen consumed an average of 21.1kg of pork, equivalent to 1400 rashers of bacon.(23)

Pig products available in supermarkets include steaks, meat for roasting, gammon, sous vide, pork chops, pork belly, pork ribs, bacon, burgers & grills, sausages, mince and sliced cooked meats.

Almost 90% of pork in UK supermarkets could be fuelling deforestation due to a lack of transparency in soy supply chains.(24)