Some of the UK’s largest fast-food chains have been linked to the forest fires in Brazil. The restaurants are being held accountable for supplying meat from animals fed on soya beans coming from Brazil. The land that the soya beans are planted in is said to have been cleared by fires to make way for crops and animal raising. Environmental groups are pushing the fast food industry to move away from fuelling the fire of deforestation through their supply chain.
In 2018, £240m of Brazilian soya was shipped to the UK. According to the Sustainable Trade Initiative, only 14 percent of this was from certified ‘deforestation-free’ farms, one of the lowest rates in the EU.
“All of the big fast-food companies use soya in animal feed, none of them know where it comes from, and soya is one of the biggest drivers of deforestation worldwide,” said Richard George, Greenpeace head of forests.
Although there are calls for boycotts on the Brazilian soya, there has been a response from the Brazilian environmental minister saying that this would only compound the matter.
Chains throughout the UK that are being pressured to respond include Burger King and KFC, who are said to source some chicken directly from Brazil, as well as McDonald’s, Nando’s Five Guys and Pret a Manger, all of which rear meat on soya in some part.
