Dubai – One of the showcase companies of the APEX-Brasil pavilion at this year’s Gulfood is Labra, which trades baru nuts from family agriculture cooperatives. The native fruit of the Brazilian Cerrado is considered a superfood, rich in proteins, omega-3 and 6, among other nutrients. Ricardo Pavan (in the photo, in the center), Labra’s founding partner, told ANBA in the Dubai pavilion that the company has existed since 2012 as a trading company focused on commodities, but that four years ago it began marketing products based on baru nut, similar to a chestnut – which is actually a seed -, and baru pulp, flour and oil, and other superfoods based on fruits from the Brazilian Cerrado, such as coconut-babaçu oil.
When Pavan moved to Los Angeles, he noticed the trend of healthy and holistic diet in the American city. From there came the name Labra, from the combination of the abbreviation of the Californian city, L.A., with its country of origin, Brazil. “At first, our company sold American products to Brazil, the superfoods marketed there, gluten-free products, among others. And four years ago we started to invest in baru, we worked with family and regenerative farming cooperatives, because the baru tree is native and old – it takes about six years to give its first fruits – and with its deep roots helps to maintain the ecosystem of the biome and the Guarani aquifer, the largest underground reservoir of fresh water in the world,” explained Pavan. According to him, soybeans are the greatest villains of Cerrado, because they have short roots. “If we don’t take care of it, in a few years the aquifer could evaporate completely,” he prophesied.
The baru nuts come from Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Tocantins, and Brasília, as well as Ribeirão Preto, a Cerrado city in São Paulo. The company already trades to the United States and Canada, and with the participation in Gulfood it intends to expand business to the Arab world. “The Arabs already have a nut culture (walnuts, seeds and chestnuts), it is their taste; we have already received very interested visitors from several countries, we believe that the fair can bring new deals and we came intending to enter the Middle East market”, concluded Pavan.
Also present at the booth were Pavan’s partner, Fabrício Ribeiro (on the photo above, right), who takes care of the commercial part of the company, and Marcelo Bergier (on the photo, left), the company sales director.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda