{"id":367267,"date":"2024-05-28T10:16:47","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T13:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=367267"},"modified":"2024-05-28T10:16:56","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T13:16:56","slug":"bronzed-mangoes-to-suit-taste-of-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/bronzed-mangoes-to-suit-taste-of-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronzed mangoes to suit taste of consumers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bel\u00e9m do S\u00e3o Francisco \u2013 For 37 years in the region of the S\u00e3o Francisco Valley in northeast Brazil\u2019s Sert\u00e3o, Agrodan<\/a> has grown mangoes, and it nows exports 97% of its harvest. Founding partner & CEO Paulo Dantas now seeks to expand domestic sales of his annual production of 31,000 tonnes of mangoes per year.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Mangoes
Mangoes in an Agrodan\u2019s packing house: 97% of the output is exported<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In its early days, Agrodan invested also in banana and grape crops, but they didn\u2019t thrive. Dantas, who spearheads the family business, gradually expanded the company\u2019s mango production and invested in new varietals that were developed and improved in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genetic improvement is not exclusive to mangoes, though. Grapes and strawberries are also cross-bred to deliver what consumers want: taste, color, sweetness, tartness, and other traits. The farmer, who \u201cimports\u201d these technologies, pays royalties to the companies that develop them. The rate is usually 5-8% of the gross revenue from sales. And it\u2019s no use to just replant the varietal’s seed \u2013 it won\u2019t bear the fruit of the same varietal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mangoes for all tastes<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After years of investment and relationship with foreign clients, Agrodan went global, particularly to the United Arab Emirates. Dantas says it was a French representative who he had worked with in the past who helped him \u201cleave\u201d Europe. Agrodan\u2019s first export was in 1991. The company had been established four years earlier by Dantas\u2019 father but with great encouragement from his son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cemented in the foreign market, Dantas wants to gain market within Brazil. So, he seeks to increasingly appeal to the palate of the Brazilian customers and disseminate in the domestic market the mango that can be eaten with a spoon. The company works with four mango varietals \u2013sweet, reddish Kent; sweet, slightly tart, low-fiber Keitt; reddish, firm Palmer; and high-fiber Tommy, the firmest of them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe red shade of the peel results from the sun bronzing the mango. Green mangoes that stay in the shadow are not that appealing,\u201d he says. For the mango to be bronzed but not burnt, it is treated with a kind of sunscreen made out of natural wax while it grows. The farm was designed for the trees to get the highest incidence of sunshine both in the inland farms and those on island on the S\u00e3o Francisco River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When harvested, the mangoes go to the packing house, where they\u2019re packed, weighed, examined and chilled to be distributed later. \u201cWe have the largest packing houses in Brazil. Worldwide, Israel has a bigger one that even uses robots. But if I do use a robot, I\u2019d cause unemployment, and I don\u2019t want that,\u201d says the businessman in a region where the growing of fruits \u2013 particularly mangoes and grapes, crates 120,000 direct and 480,000 indirect jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From orchard to classroom<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But Dantas believes the activities of Agrodan must bear fruits beyond crops. Inside one of its farms in the municipality of Bel\u00e9m do S\u00e3o Francisco, 230 kilometers from Petrolina, Pernambuco state, the company keeps the Professora Olindina Roriz Dantas School, named after Dantas\u2019 mother, with 371 students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The budget to build the school came from Agrodan, but it was a personal initiative from Dantas. \u201cI asked my siblings to use a part of the company\u2019s money to build the school,\u201d he says. \u201cThe school is Agrodan\u2019s greatest result, its greatest asset,\u201d he completes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more:<\/em>
S\u00e3o Francisco Valley: Fertile ground for exports<\/a>
From Japan to UAE, via Brazil\u2019s Sert\u00e3o<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The journalist traveled by the invitation of CNA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Rafael Vieira\/Supplied CNA<\/div>
Rafael Vieira\/Supplied CNA<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the third report of the series on fruit farms in the S\u00e3o Francisco Valley in northeast Brazil, meet the story of a company that exports nearly its entire mango production and uses some of the profits for a social project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2317,"featured_media":367177,"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":[102,114],"tags":[49536,38513,27288,6453,24464,2650,2166],"class_list":{"0":"post-367267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-agribusiness","8":"category-news","9":"tag-agrodan-2","10":"tag-banana-3-en","11":"tag-manga-en","12":"tag-mango","13":"tag-strawberries","14":"tag-united-arab-emirates","15":"tag-united-states"},"wps_subtitle":"In the third report of the series on fruit farms in the S\u00e3o Francisco Valley in northeast Brazil, meet the story of a company that exports nearly its entire mango production and uses some of the profits for a social project.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367267","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\/2317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}