São Paulo – Sadia inaugurated yesterday (23) its first unit in the Northeast, located in the city of Vitória de Santo Antão, 50 kilometres away from Recife. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Pernambuco state governor Eduardo Campos participated in the inauguration of the first factory in the beef sector in Brazil to neutralize 100% of its carbon emission. The project, which received investment of 300 million Brazilian reals, forecasts the generation of 1,500 direct jobs and around 4,000 indirect jobs when the unit is operating at full capacity.
The factory should produce sausages like baloney, ham and items for snacks. The unit has a capacity for production of 147,000 tonnes/year and should generate an estimated 390 million reals (US$ 173 million) in additional revenues to the company each year. The project also forecasts a new distribution centre covering 16,500 square metres. Nowadays the company already has a distribution centre in Recife that supplies the Northeast, except for Bahia and Sergipe, and employs 300 people.
The enterprise of Vitória de Santo Antão is part of an ancient company project for installation of a production unit in the Northeast. "We are taking an important step towards installation of this new factory in a region of extreme importance for our business. Studies show that the Northeast is where the consumer potential grows most in the country. Last year, the region posted growth of 25.4% over 2007 and overtook the South, climbing to second place in the national ranking, only behind the Southeast," said Luiz Fernando Furlan, president of the Board of Governors at Sadia and former minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.
According to a Datamétrica report disclosed early this month, Pernambuco is the state that should grow most in 2009, with GDP expansion of 4.29%.
The new factory should count on advanced technological processes related to sustainability, considering environmental preservation, communities and of all interested parties in the area of influence of the enterprise. "I am personally very pleased with inauguration of a unit that should be market reference in sustainability," said Furlan.
For the free training and qualification of labour, Sadia created in the region the Saber Sadia School. The project, which was implemented through a partnership with the state government, the city hall of Vitória de Santo Antão, the National Service of Industrial Education (Senai) and other organisations, is aimed at improving the professional training of the population, allowing for the access of these people to work posts to be established by Sadia and by other companies that may install themselves in the city. Over 1,000 people have already been to the school.
The company
The national leader in several of the activities the group develops (margarine, chilled and frozen products, poultry and pork), Sadia has on the Brazilian market a portfolio of around 680 items sold at over 300,000 points of sale. On the foreign market, the company sells around 1,000 products to 117 countries. The first exports by the group took place in the 1960s.
The company has an industrial park with 17 units and distribution centres in seven Brazilian states. Abroad, the company has trade representatives in 11 countries, namely Panama, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Germany, England, Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, China and Japan. Sadia employs around 60,000 people and, through its Agricultural Fostering Program, has partnerships with around 10,000 integrated poultry and pork farms.
*Translated by Mark Ament
