São Paulo – Brazilian honey making companies closed deals worth a combined US$ 5.4 million at an industry expo in South Korea last week, and some of the sales were made to Arabs. In the next 12 months, the 44th Apimondia is expected to lead to as much as US$ 9.5 million in sales to Brazilian apiarists, with buyers hailing from 31 different countries, including the Arab countries of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan.
A group of 16 Brazilian companies attended the exhibition, which ran from September 15th to 20th in the city of Daejeon. Their participation was organized by the Brazilian Honey Exporters Association (Abemel) with support from the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil). The organizations are partners for the Brazil Let’s Bee international promotion project.
Business contacts were also made with Korea, China, Japan, Malaysia, the United States, France, Canada, Vietnam, Mexico, Australia, Germany, Turkey, Spain, Mongolia, India, New Zealand, Iran, Russia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Slovakia, Taiwan, Chile, Finland, Senegal, Zambia and Ethiopia. According to Abemel, Apimondia takes place every two years and is the world’s leading beekeeping industry event.
According to Abemel executive secretary Joelma Lambertucci, Arabs attended the expo because it is easy for them to reach Asian countries. Although exact numbers are not available, Lambertucci believes some 5% of deals were closed with Arab nations. The majority of visitors at the exhibition, however, were from Korea itself, followed by China and Japan, according to the executive secretary, who is also the director of Apiários Lambertucci, based in Rio Claro, São Paulo.
The executive claims that for Arabs, Brazilian honey is a new product, but they love it when they taste it. Because they are not familiar with our quality, they think the prices are high, according to Lambertucci. She believes, however, that this will go away once they get to know and trust the product. The executive remarks that demand for the product is strong in Arab countries. “They buy lots of extremely low-grade honey,” she says.
Lambertucci claims that the global market is quite unstable now, with lots of product available and plummeting prices. On the other hand, she notes that Brazilian product is going more and more international. According to the executive secretary, Brazilian propolis, for instance, was very successful at the exhibition, due to its therapeutic properties and its quality. “All samples were taken,” she says.
Apart from the deals done, two participating Brazilian companies won prizes for their products and work at the World Beekeeping Awards Apimondia 2015. One of them was Prodapys Apis Nativa, which won the gold medal in the Honey Varieties category and the silver medal in the Creamy Honey, Beeswax and Light Honey categories, as well as the bronze medal in the Dark Honey category. Natucentro won the gold medal in the Macrophotography in Color category and silver in Video, for a piece portraying the green propolis production process.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
