Marina Sarruf*
São Paulo – Algeria is going to start producing potato chips with Brazilian machinery. Algerian businessman Makhloufi Hamid, who visited the offices of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce on Friday (23), said to ANBA that up to the end of the month of April food sector industry Spidor, in the city of Bordj Bou Arreridj, is going to be in operation.
The Algerian factory is initially going to have a complete line for the production and packing of potato chips. The equipment, made by the Brazilian Machinery Industry (Inbramaq), from the city of Ribeirão Preto, in the interior of the southeastern Brazilian state of São Paulo, has a capacity for production of 50 kilograms of potato chips per hour and costs between US$ 65,000 and US$ 68,000.
According to Maria de Lourdes Melo, the commercial director of Food and Machine Import and Export, a company connected to Inbramaq, the production line includes varied equipment: an extruder, which shapes the potatoes, a dryer, seasoning machinery and packing equipment. "The production line is for a complete small factory," he said.
The Algerian businessman learnt about the company on the Internet. "I did a price search on various sites and found the prices of the Brazilian company the most competitive," said Hamid, who came to visit the Brazilian company. According to him, the equipment should arrive in Algeria at the end of March.
In the beginning the Algerian factory is going to employ 15 people and the potatoes will be traded under brand Magic, being sold only in the country. Apart from visiting the installations of the Brazilian company, Hamid is considering closing another order with Food and Machine. "I want to see another machine that produces a larger volume," he said.
Company Spidor is not the first business run by the Algerian executive. Hamid has been running a chocolate-coated biscuit factory, Biscolati, for ten years. The factory currently produces four tonnes a day. It employs 60 people and exports around 5% of production to Libya and Mauritania.
Part of the raw material for production of biscuits, like the starch, aromatic essences and cocoa, is imported from Europe.
Inbramaq
Inbramaq has been in the market for 15 years, developing complete and automatic equipment lines for the production of various products, like popcorn, breakfast cereals, potato chips, pretzels, animal feed, soy, pasta, flour, soup and baby food.
According to Maria de Lourdes, the Arab countries are the main markets of Food and Machine. The Brazilian machinery is already exported to Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Jordan, among others.
*Translated by Mark Ament
