|
The Middle East has been importing chicken from the Central Cooperative of Western Santa Catarina, Coopercentral Aurora, for over 15 years. The region is among the main destinations for the cooperative's poultry exports.
According to Vincenzo Mastrogiacomo, the industrial director at Aurora, in 2004 Aurora sales to the Arab market accompanied the growth of Brazilian exports to the region, around 14%. Up to the end of the year, the cooperative estimates an increase of 10% in terms of volume and 15% in terms of revenues from chicken exports to the Arab countries. The main products exported to countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq are whole chicken with giblets (Broiller), whole chicken without giblets (Griller) and chicken cuts. In 2004, Iraq, for example, was responsible for 13% of Aurora export revenues. "It is a market with great potential. The only demand is halal slaughter with a Muslim bleeder," explained Mastrogiacomo. Coopercentral Aurora, established in April 1969, currently has 16 affiliated cooperatives. The group employs 8,000 people, has 41 distributors in Brazil and supplies to 45,000 customers. Last year the cooperative processed 85.9 million birds, 2.25 million pigs and 48,500 tons of oranges. The group has three units for pork industrialization, four for pork insemination, six cold storage units for pork, two cold storage units for poultry, three feed factories, one incubator, one grain storage unit, two poultry farms and four pork farms. They also have a concentrated juice unit. Last year, Aurora had US$ 613 million in gross revenues. The domestic market answered to 75.87% of this result, with sales of approximately US$ 465 million. Exports represented 24.13% of global revenues, totalling around US$ 148 million. Up to the end of 2005, the Aurora target is to increase sales to all continents and export 35% of production. "The strategy for expansion of exports is already underway," guaranteed the director. In January this year, the Coopercentral established a partnership with company Midsummer Belgium, based in Brussels, Belgium, to be the company's exclusive representative in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Apart from that, they managed to register the Aurora Products brand for the European continent, increasing company visibility on the foreign market. The forecast is for export of between 10,000 and 12,000 tons of beef per month to Europe. Pork Pork exports rose 38.04% in 2004 and reached US$ 84.3 million, although the volume reached 42,703 tons, 11.31% less than the total in the previous year. This picture reflected the lack of raw material in the period and its consequent price increase. The most exported products were ham, shoulder, neck and belly, among others, (27,936 tons), pork heads (1,424 tons) and variety meats (4,343 tons). The main markets for pork were Russia, Hong Kong, Argentina and South Africa. Poultry Chicken sales, in turn, registered growth of 22.67% in terms of revenues, totalling US$ 61.1 million and 9.38% in terms of volume, totalling shipping of 48,816 tons. The most sold products were chicken carcasses with and without giblets (22,365 tons), frozen chicken parts (19,141 tons) and frozen giblets (7,310 tons). Among the main buyers are Europe, Russia, Japan, South Africa, Hong Kong and the Middle East. Favourable indices Coopercentral Aurora has also expanded its participation in the domestic market. According to the Brazilian Pork Exporters Association (Abipecs), the company had 7.18% of the Brazilian pork market in 2004. In the chicken sector, the company was among the seven largest, with 2.3% of the domestic slaughters, according to figures supplied by the Brazilian Poultry Exporters Association (Abef). In the area of industrialized products, Aurora occupied the third position, with 8.3% participation. ANBA - Brazil-Arab News Agency - www.anba.com.br
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.