Marrakech – Atacadão Morocco is turning to Brazil for food imports, sending its director of negotiations and purchasing, Hamza Badri, to a week-long business round held from August 24 to 28.
The Brazil-Arab News Agency (ANBA) covered the trip, which ran under the Halal Project of Brazil, an initiative managed by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) to promote Brazilian halal products abroad. Halal refers to products that Muslims are permitted to consume.
Badri told ANBA that two motives drove the visit. Brazil is “a very large industrial country and a business country” with “a large quantity of products” Morocco can import, and it offers “very good prices for commodities and very good quality.”
The second motive was a preference for cutting out middlemen. He wanted to deal with farmers and suppliers directly rather than “European traders who work with Brazilian products,” describing direct contact as “easier and more productive.”
The company is searching above all for coffee suppliers, along with rice, biscuits, and confectionery. Badri framed the goal as a long-term partnership, one in which Brazilian producers could tailor “specific formats and sizes” to Moroccan demand, since products must be adapted to the local market.
He came away encouraged, telling the agency he was “positively surprised” to find suppliers who were prepared and well-informed about Morocco, its needs, and his group.
Badri spoke to ANBA on Wednesday, August 26, the final day of the round. In all, six Arab companies and more than 30 Brazilian ones negotiated food and beverages during sessions on August 24 and 26. On August 25, delegates joined the Brazil & Arab Countries Economic Forum, and on the 27th and 28th they toured food plants in the state of Paraná.
Atacadão Morocco is operated by Groupe Label’Vie, one of the country’s largest retail companies. The group also runs Burger King, Virgin Megastore, and Carrefour in the Moroccan market.
The Atacadão name itself is Brazilian. The chain emerged in the state of Paraná in the 1960s, took its current name in the 1970s, and introduced the “atacarejo (cash-and-carry)” model: large, warehouse-style stores that sell to both final consumers and small merchants at prices generally below the market average. Carrefour bought the company in 2007.
Accounts of the brand’s arrival in Morocco differ. ANBA dates it to a 2012 store in the capital, Rabat, and counts more than 20 outlets across the country today.
The banner, however, grew out of Metro Maroc, a wholesale operator that opened its first Casablanca warehouse in 1991 as a subsidiary of Germany’s Metro Cash and Carry. Label’Vie acquired the business in November 2010 and rebranded its stores as Atacadão, a name drawn from Carrefour’s Brazilian holdings.
