São Paulo – Dates stuffed with almonds and dipped in chocolate. These typical sweets from the Arab world are now available in the Brazilian market. Since February, the companies Notions Group and Signature Snacks, from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are exporting so-called chocodates to the country.
“Brazil’s gourmet market has kept a high growth rate despite the economic downturn,” says Bruno Bassi, the manager of Export Development of the Dubai Exports in Brazil, on why the two Arab companies have shown interest in the country.
According to Bassi, Brazil has a strong demand for healthy and functional foods, thus it attracts the companies of the UAE that work with dry fruits. Besides the dates, he said, Dubai companies have shown interest in exporting walnuts, chestnuts and almonds to the Brazilian market.
Here, it’s already possible to buy chocodates from the Notions Group’s Chocodate brand, and from Signature Snacks’ Zayna brand. Chocodate offers four chocolate coating flavors in Brazil: dark, milk, white and coconut. Besides the dates, Zayna is also selling chocolate-covered almonds, chocolate chip cookies and oat, butter and caramel-flavored cookies.
According to Bassi, sales are being conducted directly between the companies and buyers in Brazil. “Negotiations started since last year. We supplied them with a market survey and they (the business owners from Dubai) have been in contact with potential distributors in the last few months,” he said.
For now, only two Brazilian cities have received the chocodates from Dubai. In São Paulo, consumers can find the products from Chocodate. The Dubai Exports manager says that the Notions Groups is doing business with a distributor from Sorocaba, 98 km from São Paulo, who is working to take the brand’s fruits to the cities around the region, plus Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Vitória and the Northeast capitals. Meanwhile, dates from Signature Snacks are available in Curitiba with negotiations to take them to other cities in Paraná state.
The prices for the 100 g chocodate packages from the two brands vary from store to store, ranging from BRL 17 (USD 5.46) to BRL 25 (USD 8.03).
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
