{"id":318923,"date":"2022-10-05T09:55:12","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T12:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=318923"},"modified":"2022-10-21T12:34:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T15:34:47","slug":"brazilian-incense-raw-material-comes-from-oman-somalia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/brazilian-incense-raw-material-comes-from-oman-somalia\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazilian incense raw material comes from Oman, Somalia"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Martinho da Rocha (pictured above<\/em>) made two major changes in his life. First, he left the research labs behind, acknowledging his own need to be on the move. Then he abandoned his career as a video producer to become an entrepreneur and found Milagros. The brand is a pioneer in the production of resin-based incenses<\/strong> in Brazil.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian holds a degree in agriculture and fell in love with frankincense<\/strong> when he walked the Camino de Santiago. Rocha had aimed at getting back in touch with his religion and spirituality. There he smelled the aroma of a traditional incense made from the resin sapped from trees from the Middle East and North Africa, then he decided to buy and resell that frankincense <\/strong>Brazil.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Martinho during a visit to Somaliland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Twenty years after the establishment of the company, Rocha now produces his own incenses. Milagros<\/a> has a factory in S\u00e3o Jo\u00e3o da Boa Vista, S\u00e3o Paulo, and a store in Aparecida, a city that holds the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida and receives many Catholic pilgrims every year.<\/p>\n

Manufacturing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Milagros sells over 20 types of incense, including Lacrima Christi, made from raw materials from Oman<\/strong>, Olibanum Somalia<\/strong>, based on Somali resin, and Olibanum Sudan, manufactured from resin from Sudan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

They also sell products imported from the United Kingdom, Italy, and Netherlands. Incenses available include Greek, frankincense, and myrrh. Besides the incenses, the brand also sells items like censers and coal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Trees whose sap is a raw material of incenses grow in Arab countries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the entrepreneur, large-scale exports are only expected to take place in the long term. \u201cI still have a lot to expand here in Brazil. I have some consultations, and the market out there is latent, but I still don\u2019t have a person for that. My team is very busy with the domestic market. Our brand is very strong, and I believe I still have much to grow. I have to make the company bigger and more influential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Visit to Arab countries<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2010, he went on a journey through the African continent. \u201cI visited Nairobi, Kenya, where I had the support of a team that accompanied me in Somaliland [a region in Somalia],\u201d he said. Rocha recalls the warm welcome wherever he went. \u201cThe strong suit there is the gum arabic, so they were very surprised when they learned I had come to their country from Brazil to get to know their frankincense production,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Brazilian incense is supplied to the Vatican<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This trip inspired him to establish the Share the Wealth Project. \u201cIt was very exciting but also hard to see how the people that extract the resin live in poverty. So I started having meetings with raw material buyers, discussing the need to take this prosperity to them as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The entrepreneur has even presented the idea to religious people in Vatican, where he went thanks to Milagros. During the pandemic, Rocha had to pause the search for support, but he plans on resuming the project soon.<\/p>\n

Its incense sales to the Vatican were a turning point for Milagros. \u201cIn 2007, pope Benedict XVI came to Brazil, and I was called on to supply incense. I decided to make a blue incense with gold flecks to represent Our Lady. And eight months later they called me [from the Vatican] because the pope had liked it,\u201d Rocha revealed.<\/p>\n

Now the entrepreneur delivers incenses to the see of the Catholic Church for free, but the initial sale made a difference for the company\u2019s cash, besides helping to promote the brand. The Brazilian visited the Vatican several times. \u201cTheir receptivity was wonderful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Another country the Brazilian visited was Oman. \u201cWhen I went on a trip to China, I\u2019d go through Dubai, so I decided to visit Oman. I went to Muscat and Salalah, a region that has incense. I went to find Boswellia Sacra, the balsamic tree that produces the best resin-based incense and is so named because this was the region one of the Three Wise Men came from to visit Baby Jeus. This is the most perfumed and noble species,\u201d he said about the resin from the species that originates a citrus-scented frankincense.<\/p>\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Personal archive\/Martinho Rocha<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brazil-based Milagros founder has visited regions that work with resin extraction in Somalia and Oman. The brand sells over 20 types of incense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2324,"featured_media":318879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[1824,35246,20099,35247,35528,13883,2030,15339,29285,1854,13466,35529],"class_list":{"0":"post-318923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-brazilian","9":"tag-frankincense-en","10":"tag-incense-en","11":"tag-milagros-en","12":"tag-myrrh","13":"tag-oma-en","14":"tag-oman","15":"tag-somalia-en","16":"tag-somalia-en-2","17":"tag-sudan","18":"tag-sudao-en","19":"tag-vatican"},"wps_subtitle":"Brazil-based Milagros founder has visited regions that work with resin extraction in Somalia and Oman. The brand sells over 20 types of incense.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}