São Paulo – The executive director of Egypt’s Food Export Council (FEC), Manar Nasr, had a meeting with Grupo Pão de Açúcar this Tuesday morning (8). For the first time ever, the FEC has joined APAS Show, the supermarket industry show taking place this week in São Paulo. During the meeting, it represented 12 out of the 13 Egyptian companies featured in the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce pavilion in the expo.
Nasr was optimistic about this initial contact and confident that business will thrive. “The Arab Chamber is providing amazing support in scheduling these meetings for us, and we expect to strike new deals here,” she said.
Egypt’s Commercial Consul to São Paulo, Mohamed Elkhatib, visited the Arab stand in the APAS Show. He said that since the Mercosur-Egypt free-trade agreement, Egyptians are investing more on exporting to Brazil. “Last year, we only brought in two companies, and only one in 2016. This is the premier industry show in the region, and if everything works out we intend to bring 20 to 25 companies next year,” he said.
Executives from UAE companies including Hunter Foods and Chocodate also said they had meetings this morning but declined to go into detail. UAE Consul to São Paulo Ibrahim Alalawi showed up at the Arab Chamber stand and said he was impressed with the expo’s size. This is his first time in the APAS Show – he has only been stationed in Brazil for eight months.
“Brazilian goods are high quality and we want to bring more of them to the UAE. Our goods are also being met with great acceptance by Brazilians at the trade show, and next year we will surely bring even more companies from our country to the APAS Show,” he said.
Sudan
Santos Import & Export Enterprises is the first Sudanese company to exhibit at the APAS Show. CEO Khalid Ombada expects to start selling to Brazil. “Sudan is the world’s leading producer of gum arabica, hibiscus and senna, and we wish to start shipping direct to Brazil, which currently buys our goods from countries in Europe as well as the United States,” he explained.
Gum arabica is used as a thickener and stabilizer by the food industry in making soft drinks, bonbons and hard candy. Hibiscus is a vitamin- and fiber-rich flower used in teas and juices and often associated with weight-loss diets. Senna is a plant used in treatments against constipation.
Ombada, who currently lives in Sudan, spent 12 years living in Brazil. He speaks Portuguese well, and said that in addition to selling Sudanese products in Brazil, his company buys Brazilian items including electric showers by Fame and car batteries by Moura. “We are also seeking new items to bring to Sudan.” This Tuesday afternoon, Ombada met with Debora Lapa, the exports manager with Alibra, a Brazilian manufacturer of food and beverage industry ingredients, to see its products and potentially distribute them in Sudan.
At the stand
The Al Foah Company, which already has a distributor in Brazil in trading company Di Biase and Presbiteris, is also exhibiting at the Arab stand at APAS Show. The trading company’s sales representative, Lucia Carlessi, said that the Abu Dhabi-based brand of dates-based products, entered the Brazilian market in December and has plans to expand its distribution across the country. Al Foah exports to 48 countries and, in Brazil, sells in Natal, Brasília, Bahia, Minas Gerais and São Paulo.
From Egypt, Spice Home has been exporting to Brazil for four years and is attending the supermarkets trade expo for the first time. The company’s owner, Zidan Abdelaziz, said that he’s expecting to gain market share in Brazil this year. “We export herbs and spices in large volume to Brazilian companies that buy large packages and transfer the product to smaller packages to resell to supermarkets,” he explained
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Lebanon is being represented by the company Maxifour, which produces and distributes Lebanese products such as breads, pastes, herbs and spices in the Brazilian market. They own an outlet store in São Paulo’s south side, which also includes a restaurant, and a plant downtown. From the plant, they distribute the products to supermarket chains such as Grupo Pão de Açúcar, and, at APAS, they are trying to increase their market share and increase their distribution network to sell in other Brazilian states.
“We have a good market participation in São Paulo. We sell throughout the country, but outside São Paulo we’re still dependent on states’ purchases, due to shipping costs; therefore, at the fair we believe that we will be able to contact a higher number of people and thus find supermarket owners willing to invest more in products from the Arab cuisine,” said the national sales manager of the brand, Alex Manjabosco. He said that Maxifour’s flagship products are the breads, and that these are products with short expiration dates and that require a special logistics to longer distances.
The supermarkets trade expo Apas Show runs until Thursday (10) and the Arab Chamber’s stand is located at street G-11 at the White Pavilion of the Expo Center Norte, São Paulo. The address is Rua José Bernardo Pinto, 333, São Paulo.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum and Sérgio Kakitani
