Beni Mellal – Morocco’s National Defense Administration has launched an open international tender to purchase 4,000 tons of frozen red meat for units of the Royal Armed Forces (FAR) deployed in the Southern Zone, according to tender documents reviewed by Morocco World News (MWN).
The procurement, referenced as tender No. 01/ADN/ZS/2026, is divided into two separate lots: 3,000 tons of frozen beef and 1,000 tons of frozen camel meat. Bids must be submitted to the Defense Administration’s headquarters in Rabat no later than March 9 at 2 p.m.
The beef supply is exclusively targeted at Brazilian producers, in accordance with existing sanitary agreements and mutually validated health certificates between Rabat and Brasília. The tender documents were formally transmitted to the Brazilian Embassy in Rabat by Delegate Minister Abdeltif Loudyi.
The estimated contract value for the beef lot stands at $13.8 million, or approximately MAD 127.7 million. The camel meat lot is estimated at $4.6 million, equivalent to roughly MAD 42.6 million. Provisional bank guarantees are set at $276,000 for the beef lot and $92,000 for the camel meat lot, both to be issued by a Moroccan bank.
The contract duration is 14 months for beef and 10 months for camel meat. Deliveries must reach FAR refrigerated warehouses in Agadir at a rate of 250 tons per month for beef and 100 tons per month for camel meat, beginning two months after the service order is issued.
All shipments must arrive via 40-foot refrigerated containers at temperatures maintained at or below -18°C, with transhipment strictly prohibited.
The technical specifications, drafted by the Southern Zone’s Veterinary Health Bureau, require the cattle to be born, raised, and slaughtered in Brazil, fed exclusively on plant-based feed free of genetically modified organisms, and sourced from states officially certified free of foot-and-mouth disease, tuberculosis, brucellosis, and leucosis.
Halal slaughter must be carried out under the supervision of an officially recognized Islamic organization, and each quarter must bear a clearly visible Halal stamp applied by the Moroccan veterinary monitoring commission.
The meat must come from recent production, not exceeding three months post-slaughter, and must be frozen in tunnels between -35°C and -45°C before storage.
This tender comes as Morocco has sharply increased beef imports from Brazil, with volumes rising from 1,558 tons in 2024 to 4,806 tons last year, a growth of over 300%, according to data from Brazil’s beef exporters association ABIEC.