<
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2023-03-06/collagen-wellness-industrys-star-product-drives-deforestation-and-rights-abuses>
"The stench arrives before the lorries do. They are carrying skins that were
stripped from cattle carcasses days ago. Flies are everywhere.
The lorries’ destination is Amparo, a small industrial town in São Paulo state,
southeastern Brazil. Here, Rousselot, a company owned by the Texan business
Darling Ingredients, extracts collagen – the active ingredient in health
supplements at the centre of a global wellness craze.
But while collagen’s most evangelical users claim the protein can improve hair,
skin, nails and joints, slowing the ageing process, it has a dubious effect on
the health of the planet. Collagen can be extracted from fish, pig and cattle
skin, but behind the wildly popular “bovine” variety in particular lies an
opaque industry driving the destruction of tropical forests and fuelling
violence and human rights abuses in the Brazilian Amazon.
An investigation by the
Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the
Guardian,
ITV and
O Joio e O Trigo has found that tens of thousands of cattle raised
on farms damaging tropical forests were processed at abattoirs connected to
international collagen supply chains.
Some of this collagen can be traced all the way to Nestlé-owned Vital Proteins,
a major producer of collagen supplements championed by the actor Jennifer
Aniston. Vital Proteins is sold globally – including online on Amazon, in
Walmart stores in the US, in Holland & Barrett and Boots in the UK and in
Costco in both countries.
The investigation – the first to connect bovine collagen with tropical forest
loss and violence against Indigenous peoples – found at least 2,600 sq km of
deforestation linked to the supply chains of two Brazil-based collagen
operations with connections to Darling: Rousselot and Gelnex, which is in the
process of being acquired by Darling for $1.2bn. It is unclear how much of this
deforestation, which was calculated by the Center for Climate Crime Analysis,
is linked to Vital Proteins."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
