Coca-Cola and AmBev invest heavily to reach major productivity and quality

Lower Amazonas State - The dispute involves millionaire investments, spying and a true battle of words.  The battleground is the Amazonas State.  At issue is the guarana fruit, discovered by indigenous people at the end of the 18th century and industrialised into a drink in 1900.  On the one side is Guarana Antarctica, of AmBev, who is proud of being "Originally from Brazil" and who has, for more than 40 years, bought its seeds from small farmers in Maues, a city located about 260 km from Manaus and considered the birthplace of guarana. On the other side is Guarana Kuat, of Coca-Cola, which has just harvested, in the municipality of President Figueiredo (120 km from Manaus), its first crop of guarana with plans to transform the region into the newest pole of this Amazonas’ fruit.

To its favour, AmBev has the tradition.  Before the actual founding of Maues in 1798, the Satere -Mawe, an indigenous people in the region, discovered the fruit’s energetic ingredients.  With the dried tongue of the pirarucu fish (Arapaima gigas), this indigenous people would scrape the trunk, extracting a powder which the would then be mixed with water, a concoction that guaranteed improved results while hunting.  In 1921, a chemist treated the fruit and was successful in making a drink that maintained the guarana flavour without its characteristic bitterness. Thus, the origin of Guarana Antarctica Champagne, whose formula remains a secret even today.

Maues’ guarana, Brazilian leader in production up until the 80’s, began to loose its productivity and the Bahia guarana plants assumed the leadership.  One affecting factor is time- the average age of Maues’ guarana plant is 40 years, while productivity begins to decrease after 30 years.   A bush native to Maues produces 80 grams of seeds; where as plants that have been genetically altered can increase production by 30 times.

This reduced productivity is exactly what Coca-Cola wants to take advantage of in the attempt to valorise its own guarana, a plant that the corporation introduced to the municipality of Presidente Fugeiredo three years ago.  The crop is sewn in the Jayoro Sugar Factory, which supplies all the sugar utilised by Coca-Cola in Brazil.  In five years, Coca-Cola has invested R$10 million in research, planting, harvesting and improving the guarana plant.  According to Coca-Cola, the technicians have reached an average production of 1 kilo of seeds per bush. The altered plants are reproduced in a nursery that houses more than 180 thousand shoots.

At this year’s end, Coca-Cola gathered its first guarana harvest- 40 tons of seeds extracted from 410 hectares.  By 2005, it hopes to be auto-sufficient in its production and to increase production to 160 tons.  "We produce 72% of the guarana that they produce in an area equal to only 19% the area used in Maues (where almost 2,700 hectares were planted,) says the administrator of Jayoro, Camillo Pachikoski.

In addition, the multi-national is also interested in commercialising the fruit for other purposes.  "We have been approached by diverse national and international cosmetic industries that want to buy our extract and the seed’s residue to produce crèmes, shampoos and even lipstick", highlighted Pachikoski.

Perceiving Coca-Cola’s competitive advancing and the lost of productivity in the Maues’s guarana, AmBev responds: it elaborated an investment plan of R$61 million in diverse projects in the region up until 2013; additionally, it has created 12 development poles to offer assistance to the rural communities and to finance the expansion of guarana farming and the recuperation of the Maues guarana plants.

At the centre of AmBev’s research is the Santa Helena Plantation, inaugurated in 1972 in Maues.  "We have distributed more than 280 thousand shoots, with an average of 1.5 kilos of seeds per plant," explained AmBev’s agricultural engineer, Renato Cardoso Costa Jr.  In the distribution, the corporation faced strong resistance from the local farmers.  "Some said that the plants that they cultivated were from the grandfather of the great-grandfather of the great-great grandfather; so the modernisation and technology’s incorporation had to be accompanied with a process of re-education and persuading the farmers", explained Gileno Correia, the manager of the AmBev factory in Manaus.

Guarana is responsible for 25% of sodas in Brazil.  According to an October report by the AC Nielsen consulting office, Guarana Antarctica controls 75% of the market, while Kuat maintains the other 25%.

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