São Paulo – In 20 days, the São Paulo-based company BNB Importação e Exportação will receive its second container with a supply of the Lebanese olive oil Al Badawi. BNB began to import the product last year and is planning to make Lebanese olive oil and the brand it represents well-known among Brazilian consumers.
Al Badawi, a premium olive oil, is already on the shelves of around 20 stores in Brazil, in the states of São Paulo, Santa Catarina and Minas Gerais. This week, from Monday (27) to Sunday (2), Empório Hortisabor, in the Itaim Bibi district, in São Paulo, will be holding a tasting of the olive oil, from 10 am to 7 pm.
Other outlets that are selling the product in São Paulo are Saddi Center, Mercantil Santa Paula, Durra Empório and the São Paulo City Market (Mercado Municipal). BNB’s owner, Lebanese Charbel Naim Barakat, has plans to expand the tasting to other outlets that carry the product and take the olive oil to all Brazilian states.
Barakat noticed that Lebanese olive oil is not widely-known in the country and he’s set to change that. He points out that Lebanon is one of the world’s oldest olive oil producers. “Those who try are liking it, are coming back for more,” he said about Al Badawi. Barakat believes that the tasting will help build an image of the product in Brazil. “It will show clients that it’s a pure olive oil, produced as high-quality,” he says.
BNB imported the first TEU (twenty-foot equivalent) container with a supply of the olive oil in 2017 and is about to receive the second one, this time a 40-foot container also loaded with olives. The foreign trade company was founded nearly a year and a half ago, aiming to import olive oil and other products from Lebanon and export Brazilian goods to the Arab market.
“We want to contribute to the Brazil-Lebanon trade relations,” said Barakat. The company is planning to import other food products from Lebanon, such as tahini, pistachio, almonds and pomegranate sauce, and is studying which Brazilian products it could export. BNB is a member of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.
The name of the brand being imported by BNB is a tribute to Charbel’s deceased brother. Al Badawi is produced in Lebanon by a family business, of which he was a part of. The production takes place at the Kfarzaina Zoharta village, in the city of Zgharta, done by a company that began with a small-scale production.
The whole production process takes place in In Zgharta, from olive trees management to the harvest of the olive oil, its extraction, the processing and packaging. The business was modernized recently, adopting more modern processes but it’s still preserving the tradition in the way it produces the olive oil. Besides olive oil and olives, the company makes olive oil soap.
Al Badawi is an extra-virgin olive oil, with a golden color, low acidity, 100% pure, pressed and non-filtered. “Lebanon’s best restaurants are our clients,” says Barakat. The business owner says that to produce a high-quality olive oil you must focus on all phases of the production process, from planting, to a suitable climate, with well-balanced seasons, the harvest at the right time, good selection, storage in a suitable place, etc.
Aside from being sold in Brazil, Al Badawi is also exported to some Arab countries, such as the UAE and Kuwait. In the Brazilian market, BNB offers the product in packages of 17.3 liters and 500 ml, but it’s planning to introduce other volumes soon. The company is also in negotiations to place the brand in large supermarket chains.
Contact:
BNB Importação e Exportação
Email: bnbalimentos@gmail.com
Phone: +55 (11) 20815774
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
