FIRST EVER USDBC BOOTH AT ANUFOOD BRAZIL IS A SUCCESS
April 19, 2019USDBC’s booth at the first ANUFOOD food & beverage trade show from March 12-14, 2019 at the Sao Paulo Expo Center attracted 212 visitors and generated 28 focused meetings and 10 new 
business leads. Overall the show attracted over 7500 visitors.
business leads. Overall the show attracted over 7500 visitors.In addition, the USDBC trade team attended the Sao Paulo dry bean Bolsinha trading session, talked to members of the trade afterwards to learn about market trends, and visited three top Brazilian companies in packaged beans. ANUFOOD is a great venue for learning about the Brazilian industry and meeting potential new buyers. Some potential buyers were looking to expand their product base, but most were looking at bean ingredients – including flour or flakes for healthy and non-gluten food products such as snacks, breakfast cereals, pastas and baked goods.
USDBC delegates meet with potential buyers in the booth
While US dry beans are not always competitive in this market, there are always seasonal and market segment opportunities. Brazil consumes 3 MMT of dry beans a year and U.S. black, pinto, dark red kidney, small red and potentially navy and Great Northern beans have opportunities in this market. From conversations with packagers, brokers and wholesalers, we learned that by being present at major events such as the Forum do Feijao and ANUFOOD, visiting the country and a few times a year and showing up at the dry bean Bolsinha, and bringing Brazilian bean industry representatives to the United States to visit the growing regions, we have built a positive reputation for U.S. dry beans. Those activities, as well as the introduction of different bean types and bean derivative products (flour, powder, flakes, grits) through other USDA/FAS programs show that the U.S. bean industry takes the Brazilian market seriously. We are grateful for our public private partnership with FAS that has allowed us the special funding to participate in ANUFOOD this year, this has given a boost to our visibility and programming. For details on opportunities for specific bean types, please see our full report on the members only section of our webpage.