Brazilian exports looking good

Surfing is his ‘religion’. Soccer is his passion. Which is good enough reason for Paulo Rossi to be visiting South Africa right now. But it’s the logistics of moving 40-45 containers a month of poultry from Brazil to South Africa that keeps the director of South American operations for agricultural logistics company Hakan Brazil returning again and again. The Dubaiheadquartered company, which specialises in supply chain management of agricultural commodities, has a network of 26 overseas offices and exports 54 different food products from 52 countries to over 1 000 customers in 82 countries. South Africa currently represents 15% of the company’s frozen cargo business. But if the antidumping duty on US chicken exports – which has been in place for 10 years - is removed, Rossi is confident that volumes into South Africa will grow significantly. “We would hope then to do at least 3 000 tons a month to South Africa,” he told FTW in Johannesburg last week, on the eve of Brazil’s kick-off of its World Cup campaign. Along with the shipping industry at large, Hakan was significantly impacted by the Transnet strike. “Our volumes were 50% below what we expected, and that’s unlikely to change for the next month and a half. There will be an oversupply because all the cargo will arrive at the same time and our import customers will take a few weeks to recover.” For Rossi, the key factor in any choice of service provider is customer service – and that relates to preshipment procedures, release of the containers and service on the water. The majority of Hakan’s exports, he told FTW, move on Safmarine vessels. For the future, Rossi is confident that business into Africa will grow. “We’re already doing some cargo into Angola, Ghana, Benin and Togo and see South Africa as a springboard into the rest of the continent.”