São Paulo – Brazilian companies in the fruit juice sector that took their products to Gulfood, the largest food and beverage sector fair in the Middle East, already expect new business. The fair took place in Dubai, in late February.
During Gulfood, five companies exhibited their juice to visitors at the fair: Aurora, Casa de Madeira, Sinuelo, Panizzon and Natural Products (Suvalan). But only Aurora took representatives to the event. The others only sent products for sampling. The brands were shown together in a 90-square-metre Brazilian Fruit Institute (Ibraf) booth.
According to the coordinator of the Program for Development of the Grape Juice Sector, Raquel Rohden, Gulfood generated around 100 contacts for these companies, mostly from the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Pakistan and Qatar.
The Program for Development of the Grape Juice Sector was established in August 2009 and is developed in partnership with the Brazilian Institute of Wine (Ibravin), the Ibraf and the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil).
According to the controller, all companies are negotiating their products with buyers met at the fair, but it is still early to speak about values for expected sales. “They are really starting to negotiate.”
As a positive point, Raquel said that Brazilian grape juice was very well received by visitors at Gulfood. "People liked the product very much. It was the first time we participated in the fair and it was very surprising, so many people wanting to make contact and negotiate.”
With this, she adds that the objective is to expand the number of companies participating in the 2011 edition of the fair. She hopes that next year, at least four companies should send representatives and another five should send samples.
Rosana Pasini, the export manager at Aurora, explains that her company hired a trading company from Dubai to make the presentation at the event. According to the executive, 41 visitors from 13 countries, among them Jordan, India, Egypt, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait, were approached. "The target for this year is to attract three clients in different Arab countries,” she said.
Currently, Aurora has 32% of the whole grape juice market in Brazil and already exports to Guatemala, Curaçao, Venezuela and Angola.
*Translated by Mark Ament
