São Paulo – The plan is to take biomass of green banana overseas, and to have Saudi Arabia as the first foreign buyer. Manufactured by Vale Mais Alimentos, a food company based in Santos, 70 kilometres away from São Paulo, the product is a functional food used by the industry as an input to replace wheat flour. Its main nutrient is the so-called resistant starch, the biomass also contains potassium, fibre, mineral salts, vitamins B and C and beta-Carotene. At present, the company supplies other manufacturers, restaurant chains, city halls (which use the biomass in the making of school meals) and natural and organic item shops.
The foreign market entry is linked to the expansion of the company’s production, which currently amounts to 15 tonnes of biomass each month. “By August we should reach 30 tonnes per month,” explains the director of Vale Mais Alimentos, Cleonildo Xavier. How is that possible? “We will open a plant in São José do Barreiro, in the Paraíba Valley region, in the state of São Paulo, by late 2011,” he says. “As a result, we should reach 80 tonnes per month.”
As soon as the biomass inventories are reinforced, the executive guarantees, new domestic and foreign buyers will be welcome. “The potential for use of the product is broad, we have lots of markets to work on,” says Xavier. “We want to sell the biomass packed at room temperature, best consumed before up to one year after production,” he explains.
Regarding foreign markets, samples of the product have been shipped to Chile, but the first foreign client to import it on a regular basis and in greater volumes will be Saudi Arabia. Exports of the biomass will be made via DL Quality, a foreign trade company. According to Durval Fuschini, the manager of DL Quality, the first shipments to the Arab world should not take long to occur.
“We have worked in the Saudi market before, and we are only waiting for the product so we can distribute it to food companies and supermarkets,” he explains. According to Fuschini, other countries with potential for sales of the biomass are the United States and Uruguay.
Contact
Vale Mais Alimentos
Tel.: +55 13 3797-1010
Site: www.valemaisalimentos.com.br
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
