Marina Sarruf*
marina.sarruf@anba.com.br
São Paulo – The sweets and caramels made by Embaré have been exported to over 40 countries for 30 years, and 10% of sales are turned to Arab nations, like the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Sudan and Algeria. Now the company wants to present the line of dairy products to the Arab market. With this objective in mind, Embaré is going to participate in Gulfood, the food sector fair to take place in Dubai, in the Emirates, between February 24 and 27.
This is going to be the first time that the company is going to participate in a fair in the Middle East. According to the export manager at Embaré, Solange Isidoro, all the contacts made with Arab importers were made at international fairs, mainly in France and Germany. "In our last participation in Anuga (the fair in Germany), we were sought by Arabs interested in our dairy products," she said.
According to Solange, two years ago Embaré exported powdered milk to Algeria. "But it was just an emergency case, as we did not yet have the capacity to export," she said. For this year, the company has expanded its powdered milk production capacity by 40%. "The dairy sector is new to Emabré, so we are going to see how the Arab market is going to react with regard to our products. We are going to the fair to feel the market," she said.
According to the manager, Embaré usually works with a distributor in each country. At Gulfood, the forecast is to reach distributors for the dairy product line that includes powdered and condensed milk, cream, butter, milk sweet and chocolate drinks. Currently, the main item in the export basket is condensed milk, which is shipped to Angola and to countries in Central America. The line of sweets, in turn, which includes caramel, chocolate, coconut, strawbery, fruit and coffee sweets, is shipped regularly to the United States, Canada and South Korea. Approximately 40% of production is exported.
With production of 2,500 tonnes of sweets a month, the company, which has a factory in the city of Lagoa da Prata, in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, employs 1,200 people and is headquartered in Belo Horizonte, the state capital. The Embaré story started in 1935, when they made just four products: milk sweet, jelly, fruit sweets and vegetable soups. After 70 years on the market, the company now covers an area of 19,000 square metres of built area in a piece of land covering 30,000 square metres.
Contact
Embaré
Tel.: (+55 31) 2121-5500
Site: www.emabre.com.br
*Translated by Mark Ament
