São Paulo – Hunter Foods broke into the Brazilian snack market in 2019. Since then, the United Arab Emirates-based company has increased the shipments of containers full of its products bound to São Paulo. The products include gourmet line Hand Cooked Potato Chips in flavors such as Black Truffle, Wasabi, and Pesto Parmesan. The brand also exports a variety of alternative flavors such as Quinoa Chips and natural options such as Vegetable Chips.
The opening of the market started when the company participated in Brazilian fair Apas Show (pictured above) at the booth of the Dubai Industrial and Exports in partnership with the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC). “We’d selected some companies, and I told them to come with us because their products would have great opportunities in Brazilian high classes. We had meetings with some large groups. And they exported three containers year to date,” said Zilda Rosa, specialist in exports at Dubai Industrial and Exports.
Hunter Foods managing director Ananya Narayan says that the company had aimed to break into South America for quite some time. “With the help of Dubai Exports, we showcased our products at APAS Brazil in 2018. In 2019, we sent our first container to Zaffari Supermarkets. We have grown in the country ever since,” he told ANBA.
Narayan has lived in Dubai since he was three years old. He has a degree in Economics and Communication. He has applied his fields of studies in his family business, which was founded in 1985 in Dubai. “My father Bharat Narayan, with the help of my mother Madhulika created Hunter Foods to lovingly produce simple, honest, high-quality snacks that other families could enjoy,” he says.
Currently, the businessman and his wife Yan lead the business with an innovation-oriented approach. “What began as a Dubai-based family business has grown into a wider team with a vast global reach, positioning Hunter Foods in the top manufacturers of Better For You snacks in the region exporting today to over 45 countries,” the director says about the healthy snacks.
The brand started in Brazil by working directly with a couple of supermarkets in the South region – Zaffari and Muffato. But today it has an exclusive distributor based in São Paulo. Narayan says that, despite the strong sales, exporting to Brazil has been a challenge. “We started exporting in 2019. The pandemic as well as the high fluctuation in the currency has made the journey turbulent, but we expect great things and high growth in the Brazilian market in the future,” he said.
For the entrepreneur, who faced other setbacks over the last year, the problems brought a fresh look on business. “The pandemic as well as a fire incident we had in the factory last year has negatively impacted us, but it has also opened up many new opportunities, specially to partner up with many new companies and relook at the business and come out much stronger,” he said.
In the long term, the company aims at strengthening its global expansion. Narayan believes the location of the headquarter in Dubai contributes to this goal. “We are in the right location that is center to most of the world. With the efficiency of the Jebel Ali Port and the connectivity to the world, we expect to grow by 20 times in the next 10 years. In the short term, with the opportunities available and the higher expectation from our customer, we are building a new state-of-the-art facility that is three times the size of the old one,” the exporter finished. Jebel Ali Port is located in the UAE.
Currently, the brand distributes in over 45 markets. It’s also in the final process to start working with a major retailer in Chile.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
