São Paulo – Good for growers, consumers, and the environment. These are the pillars of Raízes do Campo, a company founded in 2019 aimed at centralizing several agroecological and family farming cooperatives across Brazil around one brand. Grape juice from Rio Grande do Sul, coffee from Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, and chocolate from Bahia are just some of the products of the agroecological brand.
Raízes do Campo is already on the domestic market and has invested in going international since 2020. Raízes founder and director-general Carla Guindani told ANBA she participated in food show SIAL China in 2018 at the invitation of the Brazilian Trade an Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil), taking products from family farming cooperatives. “China is whole world. If we get a tiny bit of it, it will mean so much for Brazilian families,” she thought.
Back to Brazil, Guindani started listing the leading production chains and studying what the foreign market buys the most, and she founded Raízes do Campo. In 2020, When they were slanted to start exporting, came the pandemic, and the Chinese market closed.
So Guindani had two options – pull out the project or move on and look for ways of going through. She moved on and saw a major trend of growing demand for healthy foods both in foreign market and the domestic market. So Guindani structured Raízes do Campo to sell to the domestic market.
Guindani says the agroecological product goes beyond the organic certification. “Agroecological products take into account the well-being of the family, environmental regeneration and recovery, and fair pay,” she said.
Market potential of Arab countries
Late last year, trader Pryscilla Rolim joined Raízes do Campo to take care of foreign sales. Her import and export firm, American Trader, provides foreign trade, sales and operational consulting services.
The American Trader’s director was in Dubai last May as part of a business mission organized by the SP Chamber and the Brazilian Council for Import and Export Companies (CECIEx) and talked with ANBA about her experience.
“Dubai is a booming market where Brazilian food items are very popular, and it cares about the quality, the origin of the product,” said Rolim. This is her third visit to the Arab emirate. She had previously been to food show Gulfood in 2021 and Expo 2020 Dubai.
For the entrepreneur, there’s plenty of markets concerned whether the product is good for growers, consumers and the environment, and whether the earnings are directed to the farming families. “Approximately 70% of the foods that get to our tables are made by farming families, and the goal of [Raízes do Campo] is to strengthen this type of diet around the world,” she said.
Rolim participated in a mission aimed at getting closer to this market. “It was an assertive mission for our product, and we created some qualified leads,” she said. But there’re still some adjustments to be made, like adapting packages and language, as well as the certifications needed to facilitate the start of sales.
“It takes some time, but there’s a huge potential for this market and the goods Raízes do Campo provides,” she said. She added that the company could potentially develop other products. Our portfolio features products like organic rice, beans, green coffee, brown sugar, and three natural juices.
The director says she is in love with breaking into new market. “When I’m developing new markets in Latin America, for example, I have several contacts in the region, so this prospection is more agile. When studying the numbers, we noticed that Dubai is gateway for this region, and that they import lots of juice and chocolate, which are goods Raízes do Campo is a supplier of,” she said.
Raízes do Campo hasn’t a halal certification yet, but it’s very interested in getting it to open doors in the Muslim market.
Besides high value-added, minimally processed finished products, the company also sells goods like green coffee, cashew nuts, baru nuts, beans, black pepper, rice, and cocoa. “There’s a possibility to open two new fronts, sales in bags and through the brand,” she said.
Now, in addition to adapt packages and languages into English and Arabic, the brand also has to study the competition and set prices to ensure competitiveness in the United Arab Emirates and region, as well as understanding the logistics procedure, according to Rolim.
It’s interesting to have an export front in addition to the domestic market, which is already big, the businesswoman said. “The brand is very competitive for having this direct link to the farming families. The main goal is to boost the income of farming families, support them,” she said.
“Raízes do Campo was established to enter retail and provide a new source of income for farming families, so that they had an actual fair pay. We saw the market potential and product acceptance,” finished Rolim.
Family Farming
Raízes do Campo founder Carla Guindani was raised in a settlement in São Miguel do Oeste, Santa Catarina. “My parentes were settlers. There’s a huge milk and poultry cooperative [Terra Viva] there. This made me want to implement this project,” she said.
The company doesn’t work only with Agrarian Reform cooperatives. “The project was born primarily from the movements, but you don’t necessarily have to be part of a movement. All you need is the Family Farming certification,” said Guindani.
The company works with 1,600 farming families across all Brazilian states. In the domestic market, products by the brand are sold at Armazém do Campo stores across Brazil as well as Sam’s Club, Guanabara (Rio de Janeiro), Nutrimaster (Bahia), and other specialty stores.
For her, the middlemen are usually the protagonists in the sales process, which is different in Guindani’s project. “They add value and sell products no one knows where they came from or who grew them. We tell the whole story of who is growing them, and where. The families feel they belong in the project, and so do consumers,” she said.
What makes the brand stands out, Guindani says, is the support of family farming and environmental conservation, thus preserving rural families. “This is what the agroecology project is about – a comprehensive system to help people live in peace and harmony with their environment,” she said.
Another feature of Raízes do Campo is the certainty that you’re consuming a product that’s taking care of the environment. “Now everyone is worried about climate change, the environment, recovery. Nearly all cooperatives participate in the project of planting trees and growing healthy foods,” she said. The project started back in 2020, and its goal is planting 10 million seedlings in ten years (by 2030).
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
