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The story
5ch reacted to a Nikkei report that Brazil has been barred from exporting meat to the EU since September 3 for failing to meet safety standards, with industry groups now hoping this will open the door to the Japanese market instead. Rather than raising new facts, the thread mostly turned into a swap of personal experiences with the taste, texture, and price of Brazilian chicken and pork already sold in Japan. Complaints about the smell and greasiness stood out, but some pointed out that the price gap with domestic meat has been narrowing, and others noted that Japan already imports US and Australian beef raised with growth hormones the EU bans — broadening the discussion into just how loose Japan’s own food safety standards really are.
[São Paulo — Niki Mizuguchi] As of the 3rd, Brazil can no longer export meat and other products to the European Union (EU). The EU had determined that Brazil fails to meet food safety standards. This could be a blow to Brazil, which has been working to expand into markets including Japan.
The EU bans the use of antimicrobial agents used to promote animal growth in livestock farming. In May, it announced it would remove Brazil from its list of approved exporting countries after failing to confirm compliance with that rule. (Continued at source)
September 4, 2026, 4:15
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
It's got no bite to it and there's a weird smell.
What even is that about? Like the flavor's just… thin somehow.
The fat has a really strong stink to it. Put it in a hot pot and it reeks so bad you can't eat it, and for karaage you have to trim off every last bit of fat or it'll make you gag once it cools down. About the only fix is heavily seasoned chicken steak, but even then the meat itself barely has any flavor.
At least go with Thai chicken.
Brazilian chicken is yellowish too, right?
At the end of the day it's the trading companies being stupid. Japanese trading houses are packed with executives who came up as clueless liberal-arts sales guys who can't see past short-term profit.
Saving the planet, the health of the people eating this stuff, animal welfare, sustainable farming — all those noble slogans go straight out the window the second money's on the table.
Seriously, trading companies are a cancer on society.
American beef is banned in the EU too, so why act surprised now? Australia does the same thing — safe meat for the EU, drug-pumped meat for Japan.
Uruguayan basashi (raw horse sashimi) is actually good though.
Tengu sells a beef jerky made from Uruguayan beef — tried it once and it was awful.
I heard the EU bans Japanese hijiki seaweed too. Their whole standard feels kind of out there to me.
Honestly it just feels like it hasn't been prepped properly. I buy Brazilian chicken at the supermarket, and compared to domestic, the first difference is the prep work — it hasn't been trimmed.
Excess sinew, blood vessels, fat — none of that's been dealt with. I trim it myself, but once you turn it into karaage it's actually pretty decent.
So it's "pretty decent" only after you've trimmed it yourself AND made karaage out of it? I bet you're also marinating it thoroughly beforehand. Sounds like a hassle lol
But I guess there's nothing to be done about the texture of the meat itself.
If you can afford it, sure, go for it — eating well is a basic part of life. But us broke folks can't be that picky, so we hunt for the cheap stuff instead.
Canadian pork is actually good (´･ω･)
Seriously tasty, I buy it whenever I spot it. Those block pork belly cuts for curry are cheap, tender, and stupidly delicious.
There was a supermarket chain that started out as a butcher shop whose president got arrested for sneaking a single piece of Brazilian chicken thigh into packs labeled as domestic. (´・ω・｀)
Chicken breast used to be cheap, a real lifeline for broke people, but it's gotten pricey, hasn't it.
Even "domestic" chicken is raised on imported feed anyway, so it shouldn't matter if the meat itself is imported too.
It's the feed and the vaccines and drugs that differ, though.
In Japan's case, before we even get to safety, people just aren't eating enough meat to begin with. Per-capita consumption is only 34kg, versus 100kg in Hong Kong, 90kg in Taiwan, and 60kg in South Korea. So quantity matters more than quality right now.
Is that actually a problem though?
Japanese people eat soy and fish more than meat anyway.
The taste is decent enough, and more importantly it's dirt cheap. The EU is using every trick in the book to protect its own producers too, but doing that just makes more enemies.
Domestic chicken has hit an all-time high because of inflation.
>Chicken prices are getting attention right now for coming down — but it's Brazilian chicken that's cheaper. Domestic chicken prices, meanwhile, are at an all-time high.
>"Domestic keeps climbing in price. We're buying Brazilian at about 20% cheaper than back in July."
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/b66c42a11c45be334dfbb521d1be26d76c20407c
I remember buying 2kg of Brazilian chicken thigh for around 1000 yen at Gyomu Super.
At this weekend's sale near me, Brazilian is going for 60-something yen per 100g, while domestic is 98 yen even at its cheapest. A 30-yen gap isn't exactly "a little."
Background and key points of this debate
The EU’s export ban isn’t really a blanket verdict on the safety of the meat itself — it stems from a procedural compliance failure, specifically the EU’s inability to confirm how antimicrobial growth promoters were actually being used on Brazilian livestock. Japan continues to negotiate an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Brazil, and Brazil is hoping Japan can serve as an alternative market. Where the thread split was on the question of whether imported meat is actually dangerous. In reality, US and Australian beef sold in Japan is also raised using growth hormones the EU bans — a detail that’s easy to miss, since whether imports from a given country get cut off has more to do with differing regulatory policies between countries and regions than with any absolute safety threshold. Some also pointed out that the price gap between domestic and imported chicken has been narrowing in recent years, so the simple idea that “imported equals cheap” is already starting to break down.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Brazil’s meat exports to the EU halted over safety-standard violations, a headwind for market expansion — Brazilian meat industry official calls for “opening up Japan’s market,” pins hopes on EPA.”
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