All posts by : Amaz Impact Accelerator

Manioca has just launched a version of Tucupi, a delicious northern broth, which invites Brazilians to use the ingredient as a seasoning for poultry, fish, seafood, rice and other foods.

One of the company's flagships, the Tucupi, already sold in 1 liter bottles, arrives to the public in a new 300ml package, ready to be used at home. With this, the brand inaugurates a new way to enjoy one of the most famous Brazilian ingredients: seasoning for everyday life.

In the Amazon, the broth is consumed as an integral part of dishes such as duck in tucupi and tacacá. Now, the idea is to spread the flavor across the country as a seasoning for poultry, fish, seafood, rice and whatever the imagination allows.

“Tucupi is an incredible product, 99% that people who taste the broth like. It has a very good acceptance and has the potential to be known and consumed around the world. With this in mind, we started to question ourselves about how to make this product common in Brazilians' lives. Stop being a delicacy for great chefs and become an essential spice in the kitchen of every Brazilian. As happened with the cheese bread, which was from Minas, and the açaí, which was from Pará, and now both are considered Brazilian products”, defines Joanna Martins, CEO of Manioca.

The company also recently launched the Sementes line, which offers cumaru, cocoa nibs, nuts and, soon, puxuri. And it started to market its products in Portugal.

2020 was dedicated to better understanding the business and possible paths. Seeking to understand the consumer's perspective, the company realized the desire for practicality and natural foods. Thus, the guideline emerged to make Amazonian products more accessible and simple, and at the same time maintain the appreciation of flavor. Solutions that are tasty, that do not harm your health and that are practical, all using and valuing the ingredients of the greatest biodiversity on the planet. This orientation is present in the new products that will be launched throughout this year.

The new products are now available to the consumer in the company's e-commerce.

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One of the biggest bottlenecks for business in the Amazon lies in logistics and the transport of people and goods. And it is precisely in solving this challenge that Navegam has been working, seeking to optimize river transport in the Amazon region, facilitating access to information on freight and passenger transport.

Founded in 2018, the startup develops a platform for managing data and various logistical information, such as number of people, prices, sales per branch, stocking controls, etc. The solution is focused on river transport in the Amazon, but it also has functionalities for road transport in the region. 

The initiative of startup consists of an internal module for vessels to manage information about ticket sales and an application to make sales, both on the vessel itself and at the agencies that offer these tickets. It currently serves 24 vessels with mixed transport of people and goods, a number that should increase in the short and medium term.

The public of interest includes the population of the Amazon regions that depend on river transport in their daily travel routine, companies that transport inputs and final products, travel agencies and boat owners. 

Navegam was accelerated by the Program in 2020. With the covid-19 pandemic imposing stoppages and social isolation, the startup, which started that year with a well-defined roadmap headed for the launch of new services, had to review priorities.

The ticket sales operation was paralyzed for almost five months and sales fell by almost 90%. On the other hand, the logistics operation had a growth of almost 2001TP1Q, which allowed the financial health of the business to continue operating.

The company intermediates about 45 freights a day, but during the pandemic that number reached 200. “It was a very difficult year for everyone, and our state suffered a lot during the pandemic. Many companies went bankrupt. And Navegam managed to stand up and even grew in this complex scenario”, assesses the company's CEO, Geferson Oliveira.

new breath 

In 2021, Navegam, which currently operates in the state of Amazonas, will expand its operations to Pará, Amapá and Rondônia. For this, they are hiring more professionals and expanding the company's team.

In addition to having recently received an investment of 425,000 reais, Navegam is negotiating with two impact funds. The total investment is expected to reach up to R$ 2 million.

Geferson believes that participating in the PPA Acceleration Program contributed a lot to the growth of the company and of the partners themselves, which enabled them to mature and be able to review investments by Brazilian and international funds.

“The Program team has helped Navegam a lot in all aspects, whether it's providing support in training, consulting, legal advice, in short. The most interesting thing was that the acceleration process was also a process of personal growth for all of us, as entrepreneurs. Today we have another vision of what an impact business in the Amazon is.”

Inspired by the rubber tappers who still work in several extractive communities in the Amazon, surviving with difficulty, but at the same time caring for and keeping the forest from which they earn their living, Tênis Seringô arrives on the market.  

Large shoe brands have historically always used natural rubber in their production lines. However, little by little, this raw material was practically all replaced by petroleum-based materials, such as synthetic rubber, EVA and polyurethane.

Seringô, which only works with vegetable raw materials from the Amazon, has developed a shoe with more than 95% of them in its composition, rescuing a little of this past, while aiming at the need to conserve the forest and its biodiversity and also fight the climate emergency.

All components are vegetable. The sole and the insole are produced from natural and organic rubber, in a composition with vegetable fibers from the micronization of the açaí kernel. The upper is assembled from jute, an Amazonian fiber, or from jute dubbed with rubber. The shoelace is also a rubberized jute tape with organic latex and rubber tip. And the lining is made from organic cotton, dubbed with a natural organic latex foam.

A sustainable and biodegradable product, Tênis Seringô is produced by Coopereco (Cooperative for the Production of Eco-Extractivists in the Amazon), formed by rubber tappers and artisans who produce rubber in the state of Pará, especially in Marajó and in the region of Santarém.

The sneakers, available in two models, will be on sale soon at Bemglô, in São Paulo, and at Ver-o-pesinho, at Shopping Boulevard, in Belém. segingo.eco.br, with free shipping throughout Brazil.