On Monday, February 6, the Brazilian Export Promotion Agency (APEX-Brasil) made a presentation to entrepreneurs of the Brazilian Food & Beverage Event, scheduled to take place March 12-14 in Miami (USA).
According to Juarez Leal, APEX coordinator of international events, the presentation was attended by 70 representatives of the 50 companies that have already confirmed their participation in the upcoming event, and he expects this number to double after the presentation.
Brazilian company representatives will spend the three days engaging in business rounds with buyers from large international chains. Items such as coffee, cookies, wines, cachaça (sugarcane liquor), juices, chicken, meat, sweets, fruits, and organic products will be on display, and samples will be available for tasting.
The event will be held in the APEX-Brasil Distribution Center, in the Miami Free Zone.
According to Leal, representatives of 18 chains of hypermarkets and stores from Asia (Hong Kong and Malaysia), Europe (Belgium, Greece, England, and the Czech Republic), and the Americas (Canada, the United States, Chile, and Colombia) have already confirmed their presence.
According to Leal, this will be the first event of this type in APEX’s Miami Distribution Center, which was inaugurated last year and is commonly referred to by its Brazilian acronym, CD (Centro de Distribuição).
There are plans to hold business rounds this year in other sectors in Miami and in the CDs slated to be inaugurated in Germany and Portugal.
There is also a CD undergoing reform in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and there are plans to inaugurate others in Russia, Asia, and Africa.
"We have observed that, with each passing day, the US market becomes increasingly demanding, preferring merchandise that is already stockpiled in customs and under someone else’s legal responsibility.
"So, you can place your merchandise in the Distribution Center and open a Brazilian firm in the United States – with the help of our Miami personnel, to boot – and gain competitiveness through your ability to deliver. Moreover, we view using the CD for commercial promotion as extremely important," Leal says.
Since the large chains already possess offices and buyers in the United States, it will be less expensive to gather the representatives there.
According to Leal, the buyers’ travel and hotel expenses will be covered by APEX-Brazil and, in part, by the interested Brazilian companies, which will also assume their own costs.
The presentation in São Paulo was made by the president of APEX-Brazil, Juan Quirós, and counted on the participation of organizations such as the ABEF (Brazilian Association of Chicken Breeders and Exporters), the ABIEC (Brazilian Association of Meat Export Industries), and the IBRAF (Brazilian Fruit Institute).
ABr