The organic sugar business in Brazil: main producing regions and international market insertion

Abstract

Due to the high demand for healthy products, organic products have been gaining strength in meeting the demand of this market. When it comes to organic sugar, Brazil is the world’s largest producer and exporter of the product. Thus, the objective of this work is to analyze the evolution of the production and commercialization of organic sugar in Brazil, in the period from the 2012/2013 to 2020/21 harvests. This analysis incorporates: i) identifying the location of the main organic sugar producing regions and their relative participation in its production; ii) identifying the main international markets that buy Brazilian organic sugar, as well as the country’s participation in the supply and consumption of this product. The research is exploratory and descriptive in nature and is based on secondary data collected. The partial results are: the total Brazilian production of organic sugar increased significantly in the period analyzed, with the Center-South as the main producing region, and the states of Goiás (state highlight), São Paulo and Minas Gerais producing the most. As for the main international markets buyers of Brazilian organic sugar, there are Japan, Europe, China, among others; as for the domestic consumer market, it can be seen that there are profiles of organic consumers and an increase of 5% was found from the year 2017 to 2019. It is concluded by the analysis of these data and the time frame considered, that there is a growing trend of production, with indications of some concentration of supply of this product, both in terms of geography and supplying companies, serving a consumer market also on the rise.