In the framework of the successful edition of Villa María Exporta 2016, ProCórdoba Agency continued with the work that is being carried out together with the companies that participate in the Dairy Export Development Program.

This program is part of the Intelligence Business Service of the Agency and works in conjunction with a number of support tools for Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the aim of helping and promoting their incursion in foreign markets.

This proposal has foreign trade training cycles for technicians and business management staff, program of international standard certification to improve the competitiveness of them, the promotion of companies in international markets and the proposal to create an innovation and development center of products, cooperation with clusters of countries with high levels of development in the field and a logistics optimization program for foreign trade.

Six companies from Córdoba participated in this opportunity: Capilla del Señor, Lactear, La Lácteo, Lácteos San Basilio, Tambo Don Santiago and La Varense, which were visited by Chilean operators, representatives of Carozzi and Daily Fresh.

The businessmen from Chile together with ProCórdoba validated the production and quality processes of the companies’ products to export to Chile. They also got together with the dairy companies that are in the certification process and held meetings with other food companies of the region.

Humberto Cuevas Silva and Gabriel Bússoli, representatives of Grupo Carozzi, said:

"Participating in this round, visiting the plants and dealing directly with the producers open up a very attractive window of supply alternatives and the possibility of eliminating the value chain in the arrival of products in Chile.”

Moreover, they increased their interest in the final products of local brands that may be distributed in Chile, aiming at prestige and quality products and inputs for food manufacturing, such as milk powder, whey powder, butter, dulce de leche (("milk jam" or "caramel spread"; literally "milk candy", in Spanish), peanut expeller, among others.

The Manager of Lácteos San Basilio (company that participated in the Business Intelligence Program), Jorge Trentarossi said:

"We are satisfied with the development of the program and the possibility of meeting international operators. We see a clear interest in our products. They highlight the good flavours and the excellent quality. We are confident that the prices will be competitive in order to be able to sell.”

Trentarossi continued:

"We've been participating in an exploratory mission in Chile and it was a good experience. We encountered a different business reality; its strategies are different. Commercially, they appreciate the distributor and the dimensions are disparate with respect to ours as regards volume, operational capacity and stock. We have to continue working and studying the Chilean market.”

The manager of Lácteos San Basilio concluded:

"We were assisted by ProCórdoba. They are very committed and they are with us in this innovation process on business intelligence. It's the first time we've participated in a program that depends on the government of the province. We got interested because we realized that this program did not have a political aim. It had a business and development purpose for the company.”

Nowadays there are seven companies from Córdoba assisted by ProCórdoba Agency that participate in the Dairy Export Development Program. The companies started their training in July 2016 and bet on a new way of thinking of foreign trade.