News

Strategy to promote Brazilian organics in the Arab market

2010-03-31

3/31/2010

Source: EXPORT NEWS (PR) / NOTÍCIAS

In 2010, Organics Brasil Project will support actions to promote coffee and sugar in points of sale in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The country imports mainly finished products of high added value. In addition to buying coffee, sugar, matte, and organic products made in Brazil, importers from the UAE have also started buying cooled beef. The strategic importance of that region has placed the country at the center of the Organics Brasil Project for the past two years. In February 2008, the program participated in the event Flavors of Brazil, in Dubai. Business were started, grew, and now the project is going to provide support for coffee and sugar sales in the Emirates.
Besides supermarket chains, which are responsible for the import of coffee, sugar, honey, and cooled beef, there are also business opportunities in hotel chains. “We have had several contacts from Arab hotel chains interested in importing organic products. We are waiting for the negotiations to develop”, said Organic Brasil’s executive director, Ming Chao Liu.

According to him, the Brazilian organic products exports to UAE are still small and do not exceed US$ 2 million a year. “But being in such a strategic market is already an important step.” “The organics concept is still incipient there. At present, the consumers of such products are expatriates living in the country. However, there is an upward trend,” he emphasized. “The great advantage of this market (Arab) is that there is great acceptance for finished products of high added value,” said Liu.

The main foreign markets for Brazilian organics are Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Japan. In Brazil, in natura fruits and vegetables are the most consumed. Juices, sugar, honey, coffee, and cookies are also at the top of the most consumed list.

Since the organics regulation process is still in progress, there are no official data, but figures and estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture show that Brazil has approximately 90 thousand organic producing farms. The Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDS) reports 15 thousand producers.

Recently, the Organics Brasil Project mapped the country’s certified areas – those meeting international regulations – totaling 7.3 million hectars. According to data provided by certification agencies, approximately 80% of the certified products are in compliance with the external market and about 70% of the overall production is exported.

This has been a good year for the Organic Brasil member-companies. The project closed the first quarter with US$ 8 million in exports traded in the first two international organics trade shows of the year. At Biofach Nuremberg, the most important organics trade show in the world, held in February, 11 member companies closed US$ 6.2 million in business deals. At Expo West California, in March, three companies joined together to close US$ 1.8 million in exports. “Business results were very positive considering that the international economic scenario is still recovering from last year’s worldwide crisis. We now see a much more realistic scenario,” emphasized Liu.