São Paulo – Dessert company Mr. Bey is seeking distributors for its products in the Arab countries. The company already exports petit gateau to Saudi Arabia, and in August it is sending representatives to the Middle East to find partners in that country, as well as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar. Petit gateau is a small chocolate cake with a crunchy crust and creamy filling, often served with ice cream.
“We made good contacts at Gulfood. We are going for those countries because they were the ones we had the most visitors from [at the exhibition]. Our focus on this trip is in finding distributors,” says Otacílio Prior, the company’s Export consultant. Mr. Bey went to Gulfood, the Middle East’s leading food industry fair, in 2014.
They are looking for distributors in the region in a bid to increase sales to Arab countries, which began in 2013. The company’s Saudi client is a chocolate shop chain in Saudi Arabia.
“Our client is a chocolate store chain called Anoosh, in Riyadh. They are a very major company with ties to the royal family. They also have distributors, and we want to check if they can distribute our products,” says Prior.
Petit gateau by Mr. Bey is halal certified, an attestation that the food was produced in accordance with Islamic rules. The company has a portfolio of 60 desserts, and is working to place new items on the international market.
“We are trying to get six or seven other products cleared [for exportation],” the executive reveals, adding that the company will also work on halal certification for the foods it intends to ship abroad. “At the Gulfood, we realized that if we were going to sell to other countries in that region, we’d need to go halal,” he says.
Mr. Bey makes approximately 100 tons of products per month. The portfolio includes mousse, the typical Brazilian truffle brigadeiro, brownies and pies, but petit gateau is the best-selling item. “We are the market leaders for petit gateau [in Brazil]”, says Prior.
Presently, about 3% of Mr. Bey’s output is sold out of the country, but there are plans for a drastic increase. “In the future, exports should account for 20% to 25% of production, within three years or so,” the consultant says. In order to expand in the Middle East, the company has also become a member of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.
Currently, the United States are the leading foreign market for Mr. Bey, but the company is also in talks with Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Colombia.
Founded in 2005, Mr. Bey has an office in São Paulo, the capital of the namesake state, and manufacturing operations in Campinas, in the same state. It has a 250-strong workforce.
Mr. Bey
Website: www.mrbey.com.br/en/
Email: export.02@mrbey.com.br
Tel.: +55 11 2663-2725
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
