Alexandre Rocha, special envoy*
alexandre.rocha@anba.com.br
Sousse – Medigrain, a Tunisian company that sells agricultural commodities, wants to buy maize and soy chaff from Brazil. The director general at the company, Abdelmajid Bouzidi, was among the Tunisian who participated in a meeting with the Brazilian trade delegation, yesterday (01) in Sousse. "If I buy directly from Brazil the cost will be lower, because I will save the profit margin that would otherwise go to an intermediary," Bouzidi said.
He currently buys from large multinational companies such as Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, and Bunge. It was by purchasing maize from Louis Dreyfus that he had contact with Brazilian maize. "It was very high quality maize," he said. The company wants to purchase 200,000 tonnes of maize and 100,000 tonnes of soy chaff per year.
The product commercialised by Medigrain is sold to animal feed factories in Tunisia and Libya. The company owns silos in the Port of Sousse with storage capacity for 65,000 tonnes of grain. In the next three years, according to Bouzidi, capacity should increase to 100,000 tonnes.
In the city of Sfax, located further to the South of the country, the company has premises with storage capacity for another 23,000 tonnes. It employs 100 people and has an annual revenue of 70 million dinars (US$ 53.8 million).
Olive oil
On the other hand, the Jaballah Olive Oil company, owner of the Zituna brand, wants to sell olive oil to Brazil. "We export the commodity in bulk or packaged," said the director at the company, Jaballah Hichem, who also participated in the business roundtables. The bulk commodity goes to Italy, and the packaged variety goes to France, Canada, and the United States.
Production, according to Hichem, is 20,000 litres per day. There are 10,000 trees in his property, but he also buys olives from third parties. "We produce high quality olive oil, we have an Italian press, and we use modern extraction processes," he said. According to him, 40% of the production is exported.
By selling to Brazil, Hacem aims to escape a problem that is cause for complaint among Tunisian producers. The olive oil that he sells in bulk to Italy is packaged in the European country and then re-exported as an Italian product, with no label indicating its actual origin. "I want a partner for direct exporting, with no intermediaries," he said. "Labeled as a product made in Tunisia," said Hacem.
Contacts
Medigrain
Tel: + (216 73) 22-0565 / 0566
E-mail: bouzidi@medigrain.com.tn
Jaballah Olive Oil
Tel: + (216 73) 27-6554 / 0058
E-mail: jaballah_huchem@hotmail.com
