The phenomenon is widespread among the major large organized distribution chains in Europe, first of all Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It all stems from the results of a survey carried out by the NGOs Repórter Brasil and Mighty Earth, according to which the companies involved in the deforestation of some regions of Brazil include three large Brazilian meat industrial companies (including the global giant of the sector JBS), who market their products to European supermarket chains in the form of dried, canned, or fresh meat. The almost immediate response was the withdrawal of these products from the shelves.

In Belgium, Carrefour and Delhaize have placed the "embargo" on the products of the companies in question since mid-December. For example, in the supermarkets of the latter chain there was Jack Link's beef jerky, a kind of snack based on dried meat, withdrawn from the market after the results of the investigation. Carrefour Belgium also no longer sells the brand, which uses the Brazilian JBS for the dried meat sector.

Still, the Auchan chain said it no longer sells Jack Link products in France. In Europe, the first supermarkets to take sides against Brazilian cattle products in some way linked to deforestation, according to a list updated two weeks ago, were precisely Ahold Delhaize (with its subsidiaries Albert Heijn and Delhaize), Lidl Netherlands, Carrefour Belgium, Auchan France, Sainsbury's UK, and Princes Group.

According to reports from the SB magazine, the investigation by Repórter Brasil and Mighty Earth revealed multiple cases of "cattle recycling", ie beef processed by JBS in its slaughterhouses in areas with low deforestation such as Sao Paulo, but coming from cattle raised and fed on farms (located in fragile areas), officially sanctioned - and under embargo - for illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, or because they are linked to the destruction of the wooded savannah of the Cerrado and the tropical wetlands of the Pantanal, rich in biodiversity.