Brazil is the fourth largest market for healthy products

According to the Ministry of the environment, the Brazilian agriculture is seven years ago, the largest consumer of agrochemicals in the world. On the other hand – and there's a great irony – the Brazilian industrialized products manufactured with organic ingredients that have not had contact with synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, as well as other features, such as the use of non-genetically modified seeds, growing 25 percent annually since 2009.
The world average is only 6%, according to consulting firm Euromonitor. If we take into account other products considered "healthy" – i.e. with less or no sugar, salt and fat, and more fiber, vitamins and nutrients, the expansion is also impressive.
While sales of traditional foods and beverages grew 67% in the last five years in the country, the healthy increased by 98% over the same period. It's a market that moves 35 billion dollars per year in Brazil. In 2014, the figure took the country from sixth to fourth-largest in the world, surpassing United Kingdom and Germany.
Some factors help understand what's behind this trend. "The Brazilians are much more health-conscious than the global average," said Adriano Araujo, General Director of Brazilian operation of Dunnhumby, group research firm British retailer Tesco.
In a recent survey with 18000 people from 18 countries, 79% of Brazilians say that health and nutrition are a priority in your life. This level is no more than 55% in the United Kingdom and 66% in the United States. We interpret these numbers, however, with skepticism. May exist in the polls a dissonance between what people say and what they actually practice.
Despite such willingness to take care of health, Brazilians, as well as the rest of the world, are getting obese. The Ministry of health revealed, in 2013, that 51% of the country's population are overweight — in 2006, the rate was 43%.
With that caveat, it is undeniable that there is a plate full of healthy products market opportunities to be explored by companies, supermarket owners and investors.
Retailers, for example, comes opening space – and – for the expansion of brands with health appeal. Walmart stores these products grow at a rate three times greater than that of other items from 2013. Therefore, the network has expanded 10% the assortment in this category from there to here.
The largest supermarket chain in the country, the Sugar Loaf (Pão de Açúcar), the space intended to accommodate organic quadrupled over the past three years. All this to meet the growing portion of customers willing to spend more for them. The price difference reaches 20% to range from 80% between one option and another.
But, according to manufacturers and retailers, this distance was greater. In recent years, the values have fallen by 40%.