VZCZCXRO9189
PP RUEHRG
DE RUEHBR #1192/01 1651840
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 141840Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5772
INFO RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO 7198
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 2281
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 4967

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRASILIA 001192 
 
SIPDIS 
 
EB/CBA FOR SMITH-NISSLEY 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON BEXP ELAB ETRD SENV BR
SUBJECT: AMEMBASSY BRASILIA NOMINATES SAMBAZON FOR THE  SECRETARY'S 
CORPORATE EXCELLENCE AWARD (SME CATEGORY) 
 
 
¶1.  (U)  Based upon its innovative approach to development and 
export, Charge d'Affaires nominates the U.S. small/medium-sized firm 
SAMBAZON for the Secretary's 2006 Corporate Excellence Award. 
 
¶2. (U)  Begin Text of Award Nomination 
 
Established in 2000, SAMBAZON (short for Saving and Managing the 
Brazil Amazon) is a small San Clemente-based firm which pioneered 
the export of Acai fruit - an anti-oxidant palm berry that grows 
wild in the Brazilian Amazon - to the United States.  Since it began 
operations, SAMBAZON has set the standard for promoting sustainable 
development of the Amazon rainforest while improving the economic 
condition of the local indigenous people.  Its business model not 
only seeks profit for investors, but explicitly pursues the goal of 
promoting sustainable land use in the Amazon estuary.  Not content 
to rest on its laurels, SAMBAZON has opened an industrial processing 
facility in the rural state of Amapa which will expand ten-fold the 
amount of Amazon acreage which will benefit from the company's 
environment-friendly agroforestry practices. 
 
 
-- Responsible Environmental Stewardship and Practices. 
 
The Amazon is disappearing at an alarming rate, with estimates 
ranging from 1.9 million to 2.6 million hectares per year.  To stem 
the tide, Brazilian policymakers have instituted conservation 
programs, are banking on agroforestry - sustainable 
commercialization of native crops - to create incentives for better 
habitat management.  Knowing that local residents must be part of 
the solution, the Brazilian government has sought to give them an 
economic stake in the preservation of the forest so that they help 
ensure that illegal loggers and other claim jumpers do not menace 
that environment.  Grown in the Amazon's flooded forest region, Acai 
(pronounced Ah-sigh-EE) is a marquee agroforestry crop because it 
comes from the one of the few native forest palm trees that is 
renewable.  Since neither the harvest of Acai fruit nor heart of 
palm kills the tree - unlike other palms which die when the heart of 
palm is extracted - the plant can play an important role in 
sustaining riverside communities 
 
A key player in the Acai sector, SAMBAZON was the first company to 
export Acai to the U.S. and is responsible for 70% of the pureed 
fruit that is sent to this market.  In an August 4, 2004 article on 
SAMBAZON, the New York Times noted that because of the company's 
practice of offering guaranteed contracts to growers, hundreds of 
families were able for the first time to lock in a price for the 
bulk of their crop prior to harvest.  As a result, instead of being 
compelled to turn to environmentally destructives activities such as 
logging, cattle, or monoculture or being forced to abandon their 
communities in search of elusive employment in Brazil's overcrowded 
cities, rural residents were able to remain in the area and make 
their livelihood from Acai.  In 2005, SAMBAZON's purchases of Acai 
supported over 960 grower families who worked over more than 66,000 
acres within the Amazon estuary. 
 
 
-- Development of Competitive and Innovative Activities with 
Measurable Results 
 
Unlike the customary practice in the Amazon, SAMBAZON shuns 
middlemen and works directly with the indigenous growers tied to 
four community cooperatives.   The cooperatives sell to SAMBAZON 
which then sells directly to U.S. clients.  In contrast, in the 
traditional Acai trade, growers sell to middlemen who in turn sell 
to the local market - which then passes on the product to outsourced 
manufacturers, brokers, and finally the ultimate client.  Since 
SAMBAZON's concept eliminates three steps in this process, it can 
afford to pay growers a premium above the prices offered by the 
middlemen.  Between 2003 and 2005, as SAMBAZON began to ramp up its 
supply chain, it paid an average premium 18% to 58% above the prices 
paid by the middlemen.   This premium has increased the 
sustainability of grower communities by raising family income, and 
has enabled the cooperatives to provide skill-building and technical 
assistance to support forest management.  Indeed, SAMBAZON, through 
a contract with a Brazilian NGO, has provided training workshops for 
1541 growers while grooming 56 youths to serve as technical advisors 
in organic certification and crop management.  Given the tangible 
benefits offered by SAMBAZON's model, families have rushed to join 
the cooperatives, thus strengthening the agroforestry constituency. 
 
 
For its part, SAMBAZON, which has invested US$5 million in Brazil, 
earned US$5.5 million in profits in 2005 and expects to clear 
approximately US$12.5 million in 2006.  Between 2002 and 2005, it 
purchased 5,402 tons of fruit.  SAMBAZON Acai is now carried by 
thousands of grocery stores and juice bars across the United States, 
including such retail chains as the Whole Foods Market, Wild Oats, 
 
BRASILIA 00001192  002 OF 002 
 
 
and Trader Joe's.   In addition, SAMBAZON's success can pave the way 
for the introduction of other exotic Amazon fruit into the U.S. 
market -- products which like Acai would have no domestic U.S. 
competitor -- such as Cupuacu (Coo-poo-A-su), Graviola, and 
Taperaba. 
 
 
--  Overall Growth and Development of the Local Economy. 
 
SAMBAZON's enlightened policies directly benefit poor communities in 
dire need.  By providing subsistence farmers with a secure market 
for a cash crop, the firm contributes greatly to the income security 
of the local indigenous people.  Growers are able to use their Acai 
resources to generate over 80 percent of their annual income while 
maintaining their traditional trade of forest products (shrimp, 
fish, cassava, etc.) to rural markets.   And because of the 
company's premium, family members of the growers that work with 
SAMBAZON earn 48% above the regional wage. 
 
To ensure that the community's interests are protected, the company 
has had its operations Fair Trade Certified by both the Fair Trade 
Federation, with a local NGO serving as a third-party auditor.  In 
addition, SAMBAZON has helped its grower partners garner affordable 
financing by bringing in the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based 
micro-credit provider EcoLogic Enterprise Ventures (which in turn 
receives funding from the J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation).  In 
recognition of its efforts, SAMBAZON has received the Ashoka Award 
for Market-based solutions for Low-Income communities. 
 
Finally, using OPIC financing, SAMBAZON has opened a processing 
plant in the Amazon state of Amapa.  This new facility will employ 
70 people and increase the acreage which will benefit from SAMBAZON 
grower agroforestry by ten-fold. 
 
Given the convergence of the company's work with the Mission's MPP 
economic development goals, USAID Brasilia strongly supports the 
Chief of Mission's nomination of SAMBAZON for the Secretary's 2006 
Corporate Excellence Award. 
 
End Text of Award Nomination. 
 
Chicola