Considering Brazil is 35 times bigger than the UK, any centralised system to monitor anything across the country will be rife with complexities and ongoing challenges. But when it comes to systematizing how and from where raw materials are sourced, having the right support, both from the private and public sectors, makes all the difference. It’s still a massive undertaking but JBS, the world’s largest multinational food animal protein processing company, is developing a system steeped in technology to guarantee how materials and products are sourced, all in the name of sustainability.

Sustainability is a fundamental necessity in the global food and leather markets. But the main problem is the sheer size and complexity of Brazil, and how the JBS head office in San Paulo in the south can be sure about the conditions of tens of thousands of cattle suppliers spread across the entire Amazon basin. So the combination of such a scale and the complexities of garnering reliable information and developing robust enough technology to monitor suppliers represent necessary action, no matter what the challenges are.

In terms of scale, JBS has been developing a sophisticated monitoring system for four years to analyze on a daily basis nearly 70,000 cattle suppliers, including 37,000 cattle suppliers inside the Amazon Rain Forest region.

The principle vehicle to deliver a solution is technology to weed out suppliers that are not committed to a sustainable business plan, engaging in deforestation, slave labour, and indigenous and conservation land abuse. "People around the world are very concerned about the source of raw materials; what’s behind the supply chain," says Márcio Nappo. "If there are sustainable raw materials, then we have sustainable final products to our clients. And high technology allows us to make sure which suppliers are okay with the JBS socio and environmental criteria, and which ones are not."

Mutual transparency is key in order to ensure how raw materials are processed in an end-to-end approach. So JBS uses public and private information to guarantee evolution of processes and communication with stakeholders to embed sustainability into the business, and deliver responsibly-sourced products to customers throughout the value chain.

The JBS sustainability team updates data on farms involved with illegal deforestation from IBAMA, the Brazilian equivalent of the EPA, slave labour from MTE, the Brazilian ministry of labour, and AgroTools, a private geo-monitoring company partner to collect geographic information about suppliers. And since that information is constantly changing, JBS has to be vigilant to maintain the system’s integrity. Then JBS compares the data of Ibama and MTE lists with the data of JBS cattle supplies in order to find out which JBS cattle suppliers are non-compliant.

The geographic analysis is necessary to find out which farms are specifically involved with deforestation in accordance with JBS’ public commitment or exploitation of indigenous or environmental land.

Digital map evolution
Considering the amount of data that needs to be updated regarding geographic information, this analysis is performed daily for all JBS cattle supplier inside the Amazon Rain Forest region, covering 243,000 square kilometres of rainforest, savannah and wetlands.

There is strict legislation in Brazil to organise land use, and special licensing from the government is needed to operate. If these aren’t obtained, steep fines are imposed. So once permits are in place, and depending on the region the extent of the area allowed for agriculture and livestock production ,varies. In the Amazon Biome 20% can be used for production, and the other 80% is reserved for preservation, probably the most strict forest code in the world.

"Every day we go into the Ibama website to see where farmers are being non-compliant," continues Nappo. "We then put the numbers in a spreadsheet and cross reference with the MTE data to check to see if there are JBS suppliers involved. Then we need to block those farmers so they don’t sell to JBS suppliers. They’re suspended from doing so according to our public commitment unless they change. This is how complex a scenario we face since we have to stay on top of gathering data in real time about non-compliant farmers. Then we have to block or suspend them."

The deforestation monitoring system dates back to 2009 and uses five different databases to pinpoint the exact date of documented deforestation. Plus, in 2010, JBS truckers who went to collect the cattle on the farms were asked to use GPS devices to collect geographic coordinates. Then the sustainability team used these points to see where the farms are on the map. "It’s important to migrate to a single coordinate to the real digital map of the property," says Nappo. "And not only do we have to make the maps very easy to use, read and maintain, they have to be inexpensive and they can’t impart any costs to our suppliers.

Hence, JBS has created a pioneering software, which allows its suppliers to create digital geographic maps of their farms, with the assistance of the sourcing team in each of the slaughterhouses located in the Amazon Biome. However, farms must deliver multiple forms of documentation to JBS in order to validate the information."

This software speeds up the migration from single coordinate to digital maps, increasing the efficiency and reliability of JBS´ social and environmental monitoring system of cattle suppliers.

So with better geographic information comes more willingness to comply, and 3,000 new digital maps a month is ensuring better transparency between JBS and suppliers. It’s a robust system that’s constantly evolving. In fact, in the next six months, Nappo and Bellese say they will have 100% of suppliers with digital maps to reach 100% efficiency. "It will be the biggest geographic database of suppliers in Brazil — possibly the world," says Nappo. "An automatic block system for non-compliant suppliers is necessary since more and more raw materials are demanded every day. We want to deliver a transparent system for everyone. The entire supply chain benefits."

Traceability of Hides

The control of the supply chain is also present in the leather making. Through the individual stamping of every single hide being processed, the company is able to trace its leather back to the slaughterhouse and date of slaughter.

This system provides not only the confidence that JBS hides are coming from legal and sustainable sources, but gives access to important sets of production information which favours quality control and a better understanding of the processes applied to the products supplied by JBS.