Brazil's federal police and agriculture ministry said late Tuesday that sanitary and corruption problems found in the nation's meatpacking industry were isolated incidents, an attempt to tamp down a scandal that has led the Latin American nation's biggest export markets to ban its meats, Reuters reported.
Since police launched raids on processing plants and company offices in seven states on Friday, President Michel Temer's government has sought to downplay the crisis in the meatpacking sector, one of the bright spots of an economy struggling with its worst recession on record.
But Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, Mexico and Switzerland all announced partial or all-out bans on Brazilian meat imports on Tuesday, following measures similar to those taken by China, the European Union, South Korea and Chile a day earlier.
South Korea's ban on all poultry imports from BRF SA, the world's largest exporter of that meat, was lifted on Tuesday.
BRF and JBS, the world's biggest meatpacking company, are among dozens of firms targeted in the police investigation. Both companies have denied any wrongdoing.
China is the largest consumer of Brazilian meat.
"While the investigation by the federal police aims to uncover isolated irregularities in the sanitary inspection system, the facts are directly related to deviations of professional conduct practiced by a few workers," the joint police and agriculture ministry statement said. "They do not represent a widespread malfunction of the Brazilian system."