Brazilian companies are increasingly eyeing China as a growing market for premium food products, said Brazil’s Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, known as Apex-Brasil, as quoted by Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua.
According to Apex-Brasil, a number of the country’s firms will showcase premium food products at SIAL China 2016. The event will be held between May 5 and 7, in Shanghai.
The fair is expected to feature approximately 3,000 exhibitors from 67 countries. It is billed as “Asia’s largest food innovation exhibition”.
There will be a Brazil pavilion at the exhibition. Activities there will include cooking demonstrations. Brazilian products to be featured in the event include coffee, processed meats, honey and sparkling wines, said Xinhua.
Apex-Brasil has two offices in China; one in Beijing and one in Shanghai, according to Xinhua. The news agency added that Brazil’s exports to China “are largely iron ore, soy beans, poultry and leather, which together represent 80 percent of the total [Brazilian] exports to China”. But Ana Paula Repezza, a manager at Apex-Brasil, noted — as quoted by Xinhua — there are new possibilities opening up in the Chinese market.
“There is a notable rise in coffee consumption in urban centers, which has led to the doubling of Brazilian coffee exports in barely a year,” Ms Repezza said.
The Apex-Brasil executive also noted that since China’s ban on beef imports from Brazil was lifted last year, China had become the “leading buyer” of Brazilian beef. The ban had been imposed in 2012 following a suspected case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy – more commonly known as mad cow disease – in the Brazilian state of Paraná. The import ban was officially revoked in November 2014 and Mainland China began to buy Brazilian beef in June 2015.
