Brazil: Agrícola Famosa to start shipping melon to Middle East

Agrícola Famosa will start shipping its current fruit crop to the Middle East in September. The company is based in Icapuí, in Brazil’s Ceará state, and sells approximately ten containers a week to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. “This is the third crop we have sold to these countries,” says company partner Luiz Roberto Barcelos. The enterprise sells mostly melon and watermelon.

Sales to the Middle East still pale in comparison to Agrícola Famosa’s total weekly export volume, which is 300 containers. But Barcelos believes in the market’s potential. “We are new to this market, but it holds great promise, what with its hot weather and widespread consumption of the fruits we sell,” says Barcelos regarding melons and watermelons, more widely consumed in high temperature places.

The company first entered the Arab market by taking part in overseas promotion programs of the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) and via a trader in Holland who occasionally sold Agrícola Famosa fruit to the Arab countries. Barcelos believes exports to Arabs can increase to thirty 40-foot containers a week within five years.

Presently, Agrícola Famosa’s premier foreign destination is Europe, which accounts for over 90% of sales. The company sells to England, Holland and Spain. Annual output is roughly 150,000 tonnes of fruit and approximately 60% is shipped abroad. Barcelos and the company’s other founding partner, Carlo Borro, both have backgrounds in trading companies. The company currently has two other partners, Richard Müller and Marconi Lima.

For more information:
Agrícola Famosa
Tel: (+55 85) 33245038
www.agricolafamosa.com.br