São Paulo – Groups Al Maya, from the United Arab Emirates, Maza, from Bahrain, and Cozmocenter, from Jordan, participate on this Monday (10th) and Tuesday in business roundtables with 25 Brazilian companies at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce headquarters. The Arab groups came to Brazil seeking new suppliers of foodstuffs to be sold at their supermarkets and distributed in their countries.
“We are looking for agricultural products such as rice, honey, and some new, different items that we can buy from Brazil, after which we will devise a sales plan and then distribute the products in the United Arab Emirates,” says Raj Gangwani, Import manager of the Al Maya group.
Al Maya is the leading distributor of food products in the Middle East, with a network of 18 supermarkets and one of the largest distribution centres in Dubai. Presently, the main products that the group imports from Brazil are canned meat and rice.
“This is a good opportunity that the Arab Brazilian Chamber is granting us of getting to know Brazilian exporters better,” said Mohamed Hassan, Sales manager of the Maza group. He claims that his company already imports sugar, biscuits and poultry from Brazil, and wants to increase his chicken purchases from the country.
“If we compare Brazilian chicken with those of other countries, which offer even lower prices, the Brazilian quality is the best. Consumers feel more at ease buying Brazilian chicken,” said Hassan.
The interest in Brazilian poultry is such that the Bahraini group made a proposal to be the exclusive distributor of chicken supplied by the Nicolini company, which attended the business roundtables on this Monday.
“He expressed interest in signing an exclusivity agreement in Bahrain, with us as his main supplier here in Brazil. We will work to adapt our production, and so that he may adapt to our price,” said Fabrício Bocchese, export supervisor of Nicolini.
Another company seeking more space in the Arab market is Tirolez. “The talks were quite productive because these businessmen are very well-positioned in their markets. Naturally, we must wait, because they were collecting information, which they will later convey to their colleagues who specialize in cheese, but I think the contacts were promising,” stated the export manager Paulo Hegg.
To him, mozzarella, cream cheese and coalho cheese are the varieties most likely to enter the Arab market. Hegg believes that the Arabs are seeking new items in the sector.
“They want to escape the commonplace, the commodity-type cheeses. I believe that with those types of cheese, plus parmesan and provolone, we will be able to do business,” he added.
The Jordanian supermarket Cozmocenter already buys food from five Brazilian companies and is seeking new suppliers, especially for canned foods and juice.
According to Isam Balsheh, purchasing manager, the main obstacle to business with Brazilians is the lack of packaging in English. “In my country, we need Arabic, but we also need English. The latter is even more important than Arabic to our clients, but we will continue doing business,” he explained.
To the Export manager of Alliance Commodities, Marcos Goulart, the meetings with the Arabs were very positive. “The companies match our business profile perfectly,” he claimed.
“Dairy products are widely consumed in the Arab countries. There is a widespread consumption habit, and dairy is our flagship. I believe that we may sign deals with these companies immediately. The contact has been established, one month from now we will be visiting their countries, we are going to meet them again, and we are surely going to close deals,” said Goulart, who will visit Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
