São Paulo – Sugar Shoes, a shoe maker from the state of Rio Grande do Sul, is responsible for shoeing 20,000 little Saudi feet a year. The company sells vulcanized children’s sneakers and has been supplying a Saudi importer for three years. The shoes normally carry the buyer’s brand, Basic, but sometimes go under collection Diversão, a brand belonging to Sugar Shoes. Vulcanized sneakers are sneakers in which the rubber sole is welded to the upper.
According to the export manager at Sugar Shoes, Cassia Teixeira, the company has a contract with the Saudi ABU Akram Trading Exhibition, from Dammam, which operates in distribution and retail. This is the only Sugar Shoes client in the Arab world, but the company also exports to other regions of the world, mainly Europe and Argentina. Exports, according to Cassia, range from 10% to 40% of production, depending on the season of the year.
Sugar Shoes produces both under its own brands and under client brands. Both modalities are shipped abroad and also sold on the domestic market, but abroad, most of the shoes go under the buyer’s brand. In Brazil, for example, Sugar Shoes produces for retail chain Renner and for the Barbie line. The company’s own brands are Diversão, of children’s sneakers, Mundy, of sober adult male and female sneakers, Star Tech, more colourful adult and teenage sneakers, and Ergonpé, of baby and kid’s sneakers.
Production is in Picada Café, a city in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil, where the company produces 6,000 pairs a day, and in Senador Pompeo, in the state of Ceará, where production totals 7,000 pairs a day. The company has been in operation for 14 years and has a license to produce and distribute the Coca-Cola Shoes brand in Brazil. The products are sold both in multi brand stores and at Coca-Cola Clothing, a retail brand that opened its first unit in Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, this year. Sugar Shoes is negotiating the first exports by Coca-Cola Shoes.
Contact
Sugar Shoes
Telephone: (+55 54) 3285-2600
Site: www.clicdiversao.com.br
*Translated by Mark Ament
