Abu Dhabi – Brazil is featured in SIAL Middle East, the industry show in Abu Dhabi, UAE, with 14 companies showcasing a wide variety of food products, including typical ones. The show opened this Monday (10) including a stand organized by Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, with support from the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil), the Foreign Ministry and the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.
A few hours into the event, the Brazilian area was bustling. Products on show include meats, coffee, sweets, biscuits, equipment, and traditional Brazilian items like açaí, buriti and acerola pulp, tapioca, cumari pepper from Pará, and Brazil nuts. Some of the exhibiting enterprises are looking to set foot on Arab countries for the first time, while others are trying to increase their market share. Meetings have been scheduled with local reps and contracts are about to be signed by the Brazilian exhibitors.
Trading company ALM Brazil of Rio de Janeiro brought numerous typical Brazilian items – its specialty. CEO Marlucia Martire is offering tapioca flour, Brazil nut, cumari and malagueta pepper preserve, gourmet vegan soy farofa, dried banana, beans, etc. The company ships product to the Gulf, China and Europe, and it’s getting ready to open an office in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone next January. Marlucia told ANBA that contracts just pending signing are expected to go through at SIAL.
Hailing from Belém, Pará, 100% Amazônia is offering Amazon rainforest products, including acerola, buriti, caju, camu-camu and taperebá fruit pulp, and açaí, acerola, cupuaçu and jabuticaba powder. The fruits and seeds are supplied by Amazonian communities, including indigenous and riverside ones.
100% Amazônia has been active for nine years now. It was founded in a bid to conserve the forest, its commercial director Fernanda Stefani (pictured at the top of this article) said. Its items get shipped to about 60 countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, as well as the United States. Fernanda explains that she’s at SIAL Middle East to learn about the market and showcase her unique products. “To bring the flavors of the forest and their health benefits,” she told ANBA.
Essenciale is another Brazilian company exhibiting at SIAL Middle East. Based in Lagoa Santa, it makes propolis and propolis-based products. Essenciale, which sells in ten-plus countries, is now taking its first steps in an Arab market. Chairwoman Nivia Alcici tells that she made a small, one-off sale in 2018 to a major beekeeping company in the UAE, and its plan is to find new buyers in the region.
At SIAL China, which is often also goes to, Essenciale has won two technical innovation awards – for a wine and propolis drink in 2015 and a gourmet propolis concentrate in 2018. The concentrate is intended for cooking, but it can also be taken as an antioxidant.
Food-making equipment company Bralix of São Paulo, another exhibitor at SIAL Middle East, started working just month with a distributor in the UAE – Falcon Professional Kitchen, which will handle sales locally and regionally. Bralix equipment is intended for making snacks, sweets, pasta and pastry. Its foreign trade coordinator Jorge Soto said the Middle East is one of the company’s international markets. In the region, it sells mostly machinery for making typical Arab foods like kibbeh and falafel.
The Brazilian Agriculture Ministry’s general coordinator for Foreign Investment and Cooperation Rodrigo da Matta points out that Brazilian exhibitors have brought an interesting product mix to SIAL Middle East. “The deals that began during SIAL Middle East 2017 are expected to continue this year,” he told ANBA. Last year, the Ministry also supported the Brazilian participation. The event yielded USD 2 million during the event, with USD 20 million in deals expected in the 12 following months.
The Arab Chamber is backing the Ministry’s initiative for the second year straight. “The show is expanding, and Abu Dhabi is an important market,” says the Chamber’s international business executive Fernanda Baltazar, who’s attending SIAL. She said fairgoers are qualified buyers, and that the Chamber’s presence is the continuation of a bevy of actions being taken in tandem with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
