Technical Bulletin - Reciclamais Expo
olá!, I was lucky enough to attend the Reciclamais show in São Paulo, Brazil on June 8-10th 2010. This Expo is regarded as the most important show within Latin America and is associated with Recharger magazine.
Flying to Brazil
As you can expect the flights from Australia to Brazil are not short, I started to count the hours including all the stop overs on my itinerary: After counting with all my fingers and toes I still hade many hours to go, so decided it was best not to know. I wasn't really that worried about the long flights, because I had a plan: The plan was to learn Portugese, I figured I could learn the language and be fully up to speed by the time I got there. There's nothing better than leaving things to the last moment they say! I had this really nifty program on my phone, which speaks Portugese to me and then I would try to repeat it. After getting a few weird looks during the flight I decided ummmm...... maybe better to watch the in flight movies instead.
Santiago
Santiago airport was great fun, a 5 hour delay and three gate changes all without any notice. Luckily I ran into some fellow Australians and Brazilians who have been studying English in Australia. I sometimes play a game, I must admit this is not a normal game but maybe this is because I'm not normal; anyway enough of that, the game is 'Pick the Nationality': Its not always the easiest game, but when you see some young guys wearing board shorts and tee shirts you know they have to be Australian. For some reason our nationality has decided that board shorts and a tee meets international travel standards. Outside temperature in Santiago was 6 degrees and it's winter in Australia, right!
The Expo
The expo was located at the Expo Centre Norte, Yellow Pavilion. Luckily between my pointing and basic Portugese I was able to get the taxi driver to the correct pavilion ... you know, the yellow building. The same could not be said for many other international visitors: I heard horror stories of some people driving around for hours looking for the building. My plan was working, my Portugese was coming in handy, and talking to yourself in the plane has its advantages!!
The expo had 126 booths and at many of these booths were companies that we had never had contact with before: It took three days to fully get around to all the booths. With a large number of the exhibiting companies from Brazil it was very interesting to see what products were available to the local market. I must mention that the remanufacturing industry in Brazil is very large and there were many international companies at this expo trying to gain some market share. There are two trade associations in Brazil: ABRECI and AGRECI, which is the equivilant of our ACRA. There are over 20,000 remanufacturing companies registered with these trade associations: Thats 20,000 registered, and I wonder how many more are not registered!
I was pleasantly surprised that at most booths somebody had the skills to speak to me in English, sometimes translators were used but all up the language barrier was not as big a problem as I first expected it to be. It was not that uncommon during my travels to hear of young Brazilians coming to Australia to learn English. In fact, just like Brazil and South America seem an exotic tourist destination for us, it seems Australia and New Zealand are also well regarded as great holiday destinations for them as well. The local distributor of Sensient ink in Brazil has a phone with a AC/DC ring tone on it and he was quoting lines from Crocodile Dundee to me. I guess that's what we are famous for!!
As well as the Brazilian companies at the expo, there was also a wide range of international companies.: Many companies from China, Taiwan, Korea and some European companies were showcasing their products. You also had the major industry brands at the show, including Sensient, who were there assisting their distributors. In Brazil there has been lots of issues with the Formulabs name which is the previous name for Sensient inkjet ink. A few companies were selling ink under the Formulabs name even though it was not ink from Sensient, which is pretty naughty! This just shows you how well regarded Sensient ink is in South America.
We discovered different and unique products and we are investigating their suitability for our market. Many of the filling machines, centrifuges, etc. were slightly different to what we have seen before. It's interesting to see how people attack the same problem from different angles around the world... We continually try to source the best products suitable for our market from around the world and this is one of the main reasons we travel to these expos.
My opinion is that the Brazilian remanufactured market is very similiar to ours in many ways, with remanufacturing (recharging) stores making up the majority of the market. A quick walk from my hotel and I discovered a small remanufacturing store with a locally made vacuum filling machine offering a while-you-wait service. We then tried to start a conversation, and I must say their Portugese was very good and so was my English: Lets just say it wasn't a long conversation. We exchanged business cards and I took a few photos and the adventure continued...
Sensient There were three representatives from Sensient at the expo and we spent a great deal of time discussing various details about their inks, future ink releases, different markets, marketing materials and many other topics we hope will strengthen their brand and help you, our customers. I'm not sure if you know but Sensient is not a small company, their turnover is 1.4 billion US dollars a year and have been manufacturing inkjet inks for over 30 years. They have a very long manufacturing history and their doors first opened in 1893 under the name 'Meadow Springs Distillery'! This does not mean you can drink the stuff!!
We have existing inks compatible with the HP564/HP920/Pgi-520/Cli-521 cartridges, however, Sensient has recently developed a dedicated inkset for these models which offers 100% colour match with the OEM. Another soon to be available inkset will be the pigment inks for the HP940 CMYK cartridges.
Our current H4WL4 is a patented high density pigment black ink and we have received great feedback. Sensient is soon to release another HP Pigment ink which pushes ink chemistry to the limits again. We have samples of all the new inks and will commence our own in-house testing soon.
Sensient has also recently increased their inkjet ink range to cover a wide range of exciting new markets using new inkjet technology: We are researching these markets and will endeavour to bring you the information and inks neccessary to enter these lucrative markets.
The Lift!!
It seems no matter where I travel some object is trying to take me out, in this case it was my hotel lift. If you're on the 22nd floor of a hotel the lift is the way down, but it seems one particular lift had a mind of its own! In the morning I entered the lift and the door closed, I pressed 'ground floor' and nothing happened. Pressed 'ground floor' again - still nothing - and then silence... so there I was in Brazil stuck in a lift! Fortunately after a few minutes and a few prayers the lift started going down. Score: Lift 1, Shane 0.
Round 2: After a long day at the show and a few local beverages (Brahma) I headed back to the hotel: I arrived at the hotel and jumped into the lift which was empty and ready to go. It had been a long day and I had forgotten about my earlier adventures with lift No.5, but I soon remembered... All was going well, at Floor 22 the lift door opened and, I'm not sure if it was my lack of speed caused by an excess of brahma consumption or not, but, upon exiting the lift, the doors tried to eat my bag! However, using my brahma-inspired, new-found confidence, I managed to free my bag and outwit the lift. However, I never used lift no.5 again, even though it was always there waiting ominously to devour me!!
I was happy to call it a 1-1 draw!!
Football, Brahma and did I say Football!
The Reciclamais show started at midday and ran to 8pm at night for three days: Tuesday to Thursday. I believe this is a good time schedule for this type of expo for a number of reasons: The first is that it gives you time in the morning; the second is it does allow local businesses to attend the show after normal business trading hours; and the third is that, thanks to three generous sponsors, Brahma was available free everyday at the expo. I'm not sure what the plan with the free beer was - maybe they thought it would help them close business deals easier.
Did I say football (...soccer)
As you have probably heard football is basically a religion in Brazil. I was looking forward to seeing a local football game, but due to the fact that the World Cup was on, no games were played during that time. It's incredible that everybody you talk to knows about the Brazilian team. Everyone had two things in common - they all didn't like the coach as his formation is not attacking enough and they don't like their arch-rivals: Argentina.
I heard that if you are in Brazil when Brazil is playing the streets are like a ghost town: Everybody is watching the game on TV. São Paulo is a large city with around 12 million people and you can imagine getting from one side of the town to the other could take a while... I heard from one local that if they know they have to travel to the other side of town, they would wait for a Brazil game!!!!
Obrigado
Shane
