São Paulo – Since 2013, animal food by Total Alimentos, an animal nutrition company in Três Corações, Minas Gerais, MG), is available to cats and dogs in Lebanon. Total’s strategic plan includes exporting its product line Equilíbrio Super Premium, with new countries added each year.
Bigger and bigger batches get shipped to a port in Beirut every year, according to international business manager Cláudio Dafferner. “An importer buys the product and distributes it to other countries in the region, including Syria, Iraq and Jordan,” he says.
Total Alimentos will not disclose its export figures or how much of its output gets sold internationally. Dafferner explains that the company has been looking to international markets for over ten years now and plans on increasing sales volume. This is one of its primary concerns.
A few months ago, the manager travelled to North Africa, where he engaged in discussions in a bid to broaden the reach of his items in Arab countries. “We are in touch with the Apex (Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency) in Dubai, seeking out information about that market. There’s a lot of potential,” says Dafferner.
The company’s plans include joining this year’s iteration of Pets Arabia, a household pet trade show in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, in late October and early November. “We will go on our own,” he claims. “ Depending on the partners we’ll find, we can begin exporting to other countries across the region,” he says, mentioning Kuwait and Egypt, where some of Total’s competitors are already active, as cases in point.
The Equilíbrio Super Premium product line is Total Alimentos’ flagship export product. It gets shipped to 25 different countries, and is the best-selling product of its kind in South America. Overall, the company’s products are available in 37 countries in all five continents.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
