hanghai, November 9th At the booth of the Brazil Pavilion at the 3rd China International Import Expo, there was a Brazilian entrepreneur named Philip Teixeira who called himself a “little ant”. Experience has witnessed the huge business opportunities brought by the CIIE for foreign SMEs.
When traveling to Ningbo, China for the first time in 2015, Teixeira fell in love with this vibrant city. Having been engaged in import and export trade for many years, he quickly realized the huge potential of the Chinese consumer market, and set up an office in Ningbo in 2016, focusing on introducing Brazilian food into the Chinese market.
In Teixeira’s view, he has caught up with a good opportunity for China’s consumption upgrade. As purchasing power continues to increase and consumer tastes continue to increase, the Chinese have changed from “what can I buy” to “what am I willing to buy”. This is a market with huge potential for Brazilian agricultural products and food.
According to the “Statistical Survey and Analysis Report on the Supply and Demand of Major Consumer Goods” released by the Ministry of Commerce in 2019, 79.6% of Chinese consumers have purchased imported consumer products, and 41.7% of consumers have purchased imported consumer products accounting for more than 10% of their purchases of similar consumer products.
“I find that Chinese people now pay special attention to food quality and health. If the imported food does not meet these two points, business will definitely not be good.” Teixeira said, based on the above considerations, he chose the famous Brazilian Baldoni honey as the company’s first product. leading product.
Last year, through the matchmaking of the Brazilian Export Investment Promotion Agency, Teixeira’s company set up a booth in the Brazil Pavilion of the 2nd CIIE and achieved very good results. He said: “For small and medium-sized enterprises, a platform like the CIIE that can reach a large number of specific professional customers is very rare, and it is especially difficult to have such an opportunity after the epidemic.”
In the past four years, Teixeira’s sales have doubled year by year, and he has also sold products to neighboring countries such as Singapore and Malaysia with China as the center. His expectations for the Chinese market are also increasing. “In the next few years, we plan to set up 300 sales points in China to sell Brazilian specialties.” Talking about the next plan, Teixeira showed strong confidence.
In contact with a large number of Chinese customers at the CIIE, Teixeira also realized that there were some problems with Brazilian food entering China.
“For example, the traditional gourmet cheese bread that Brazil pavilion vigorously promotes at the CIIE is salty to Chinese consumers. If it is directly introduced, the effect is not ideal.” Teixeira said, “For another example, in Brazil and Europe and the United States. The country has become the acai berry of the Internet celebrity fruit. Because of the differences in Eastern and Western food cultures, if you want to come in, you must find a product form that meets the Chinese eating habits.”
In the next step, Teixeira’s company intends to introduce Brazilian alcoholic beverages and acai products, and is also planning to expand sales through the now popular “live streaming” method.
“For us, u2018 small ants u2019 engaged in import and export trade, the CIIE is like a u2018 towering tree u2019. As long as you climb this tree, you can easily reach the branches and leaves you want to go to.” He said, I will come to Shanghai every year to participate in the exhibition.
