São Paulo – A food company from Saudi Arabia is planning to start purchasing honey from Brazil. The purchase of materials manager of Sunbulah Group, Irfan R. Shah, attended in the last two days business meetings with Brazilian companies of the sector in the city of São Paulo, and is planning to buy five containers of the product for market test, he said to ANBA this Thursday (11th) at Biofach fair, at Bienal do Ibirapuera.
Biofach is an exhibition focused on organic and sustainable agriculture. Shah is one of the importers invited for the fair by the project Brazil Let’s Bee, which promotes the Brazilian honey abroad and is organized by the Brazilian Association of Honey Exporters (Abemel) and the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil). Besides the Saudi company, also participating from the Arab world are businessmen from Morocco and Lebanon.
The Sunbulah Group produces, buys and processes food, which later is distributed in markets such as Saudi Arabia and the other nations in the Middle East, besides North Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe. The company has offices also in Dubai, Oman and Qatar. Sunbulah works with food items including vegetables, beef, poultry, fish, bakery and honey. The bakery products, for instance, come from their own production.
The company distributes 12,000 tons of honey per year. The company buys mainly from Mexico, with suppliers also in Argentina, Australia, India, Cuba and China. According to Shah, the honey from Brazil was a surprise to him. The manager says that, despite the company buying from Mexico and Argentina, which are close to Brazil, he didn’t know the Brazilian product. Shah had one criticism to the local honey, saying that it crystallizes too fast, but that he will import to evaluate the product. The deals, however, were not closed yet.
Shah says that for his company it’s important that suppliers are able to produce certification from Germany and believes that there’s a potential to import one thousand tons from Brazil. He wants to establish a partnership with domestic companies for promotion of the product in the markets where Sunbulah Group will distribute it. He says that, in Saudi Arabia, honey is consumed by itself for medical purposes.
Zouhair Zemzami, manager of the Moroccan company Zemzami, also made contact with Brazilian honey producers. He said that he liked the product’s quality and that the companies are very professionals, but is looking for a better price since he buys in large quantities. Zemzami says that he plans to strengthen his relationships with Brazilian companies before deciding on a buy.
The Moroccan company produces, packages and trades honey in Morocco. It’s starting to operate in South Africa. From the total honey sold, 40% is from Moroccan production, and 60% is imported from countries such as Argentina, Spain, Chile, India and China. But, according to Zemzani, could come from any part of the world. It’s the first time in Brazil for the manager, but not the last. Zemzami says that he felt at home in the country.
The analyst of International Business at Apex-Brasil, Camila Meyer, made a positive assessment of the Arab participation in the matchmaking and emphasized that this is a market that is being opened up. “It’s an opportunity to display the quality of the Brazilian honey”, said Meyer. Besides the matchmaking at the fair, which took place on Wednesday (10th) and Thursday (11th), on this Friday (12th) importers have scheduled visits to honey manufacturing companies in the state of São Paulo.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
