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How long does Tradin exist and what is your core business in the
market?
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Tradin
Organic Agriculture exists since 28-08-1985 and has always been
active in the trade of
organic raw materials for the organic consumer
products producing
industry.
We are still active
doing that, but have intensified our activities, both in
the areas of selling
and sourcing.
On the sourcing side
we are active in over 40 countries and source:
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by
using our sourcing companies (often joint ventures) like the ones in
China,
Serbia and Monte Negro, Croatia, the Dominican Republic, Malaysia
and
Brazil.
In most of these ventures we also have processing activities, thus
being
able to increase our quality control, add added value in these
countries
and offer more interesting products at more competitive prices
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by
active participating in project, like in Russia, Ghana, Bolivia and
many
others
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and
by "open trade" (buying from thirds parties).
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Most
of our products come out of our own companies and the projects.
On the sales side we
have now sales companies in most of the Western
countries, like in the
Netherlands (from out of where we approach amongst
others the UK, the
Scandinavian countries, Belgium and many other
countries), Germany,
France, Austria, Hong Kong and the USA.
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How are Tradin trading activities developed in Latin America and
what
are your plans for the
next years in this region?
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We
have traditionally very close ties with Latin America: our owners
and
most of our trading
personnel are fluent in Spanish and we even basically
started opur company
in 1985 trading with Mexican organic sesame seed. As
mentioned above a lot
of our sourcing takes place out of Latin America, out
of some projects
there (eg Bolivia), out of our own company in Brasil and
out
of "open trade relations" (eg with Peru, Ecuador,
Argentina, Chili). |
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How do you see the growth of internal market for the organic sector
in
Latin America?
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We
are basically still "only" sourcing out of Latin America
and sell these
organic raw materials
in the Western countries, but see important internal
organic markets
starting to develop in Brasil, Mexico and Argentina.
We
estimate the total Latin American internal market at around Euro 200
million in 2000, Euro
470 million this year and around Euro 675 million in
2005, so a relative
small market still, but growing fast.
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Which organic products do you think that have more demand in the
European
market nowadays?
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The
growth started with organic fresh vegetables and (a little later)
fresh
fruits, then followed
with organic dairy, later (some years ago) with other
organic consumer
products. We think therefore that the actual market is
biggest in the first
groups, but that growth will especially take place in
these last product
groups (mueslis, yoghurts, fruit juices, so the more
"fancy" products).
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In your opinion, what are the most representative organic products
from
South America in
the international market?
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We
import a lot of fresh fruits (our sister company Trabana B.V.) and
then
especially organic
bananas, and furthermore: organic cocoa, organic sugar,
organic palm oil,
organic soy. Furthermore some smaller, specialized,
products
like quinoa etc.
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What are the biggest challenges that the organic sector will face in
the
following years?
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The
(Western) market is changing rapidly: several years ago the demand
was
far bigger then the
offer of organic products. Nowadays a big oversupply
already exists in
some product groups. |
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Prices will therefore tend to
decrease, as will
margins of all the actors in this market. This again will
force the total
market (all the players in the chain) to work more efficiently, thus
more professionally.
The market will start
more and more to be like the conventional market (of
course remaining organic).
Players (farmers, traders, producers, clients) are already and will continue
to become (far more)
bigger as market growths (cooperatives instead of
farmers, big
industries making the products instead of the small specialized
producers of organic
products, less and bigger traders, buying directly from
the source instead of
small and many margin adding units, supermarket chains
will take over the
market from the small specialized shops). This is a
logical step for a
market that goes from a very small niche to a main stream
market.
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