São Paulo – Company Blue Macaw Flora, a maker of snacks and fruit and herb extracts, started exporting to Saudi Arabia and plans to invest for growth in the Arab market. Headquartered in the city of Mauá, in Greater São Paulo, the company shipped to the Saudis for the first time halfway through this year. Some 400 kilograms of Frootiva, a crisp fruit snack launched by the company one and a half years ago, were sold to the country.
“We believe very much in that market for the product as they have nothing similar and it is a healthy product, they like it,” said Ana Tovazi, a partner at Blue Macaw Flora. Frootiva is a kind of healthy and natural breakfast cereal. They are cubes of apple that may be covered in granulated assai, cupuassu or passion fruit. We offer all three flavours. Sales to Saudi Arabia were in 30 gram packages.
The export went through a distributor who works for Blue Macaw Flora and is headquartered in Santos and has good contacts among the Saudis. Tovazi believes that sales to that market will continue, but says that the company has not yet invested in the region and plans to do so starting in the second half of 2013. The idea is to make use of missions, business roundtables or fairs with Brazilian participation.
Production of the Frootiva brand is six to eight tonnes a month and exports still represent a small share of the total, said Tovazi. Blue Macaw Flora also makes dried extract of products like guaraná, mate tea, catuaba, marapuama, assai and acerola. They are powders used by the food and beverage industry. In this area, the company’s production capacity is of over 50 tonnes a month and exports totalled 50 tonnes in 2012. The main markets are the United States, Germany, France, Australia and Canada.
Blue Macaw Flora started operating in 2009 and was established by Tovazi and Marina Salama. They met at a multinational company, Tovazi in the import, export and customer service areas and Salama in marketing and sales. The company was born focussing on the domestic and foreign market. Currently, the entire Frootiva production is developed by the company and part of the production of extracts is outsourced. The raw material, fruit and herbs come mainly from the North of Brazil.
Contact
Blue Macaw Flora
Site: www.bluemacawflora.com
Site: www.frootiva.com
Telephone: (+55 11) 2503-5356
E-mail: ana.tovazi@bluemacawflora.com
*Translated by Mark Ament
