Grocery Stores Threatening Brazil Boycott Must Go Further to Truly Protect Forests

Leading international supermarkets recently wrote a letter to Brazilian lawmakers, threatening a boycott over a proposed law that would open up the Amazon to deforestation and exploitation. In response to the letter, Mighty Earth CEO Glenn Hurowitz released the following statement:

“It’s great to see supermarkets like Stop & Shop owner Ahold Delhaize stepping up and using their leverage as major buyers from Brazil to stop this terrible bill. These companies seem to understand that ongoing complicity in President Jair Bolsonaro’s ecocide poses a severe danger to their reputations and brands. They are right. Nobody wants to go to their local grocery store and buy chicken or steak connected to the destruction of an ancient rainforest or the displacement of Indigenous peoples.

“But these companies shouldn’t need the threat of this legislation to act. Day in and day out, Stop & Shop is keeping suppliers like Cargill and JBS – the companies largely responsible for the destruction of the Amazon and other ecosystems – in business by buying their meat and feed.

“Until grocery stores start canceling contracts with the suppliers driving the burning of the Amazon, they remain complicit in the destruction. Their customers and the world expect these brands not just to call for action, but to act.”