Tuesday January 24th, 2023

“Everything is driven by the respect for nature”. The statement was made by Patrícia Nogueira, Red Lychee’s CEO, about the brand which produces lychees at Fazenda Olhos D’Água, located in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and which belongs to the Nogueira family since 1955. With more than 400 tons of fruit exported between 2021 e 2022, the farm positions itself as a sustainable fruit producer for countries like Canada and the United Kingdom, celebrating the tenth harvest of the fruit this year.

Currently Red Lychee, which participates in Frutas do Brasil – the export program of the Brazilian Association of Producers and Exporters of Fruit and Derivatives (Abrafrutas), with the support from the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil) –, exports half of its production through the air way, the most adequate to keep the fresh fruit preserved. According to Patrícia, the goal of the brand’s internationalization is to bring healthy, quality and fresh food to the tables of other families. She also explains that the target countries for the brand’s internationalization are the United Kingdom and Canada, a market in which lychee is a highly valued fruit.

The lychees produced by the Brazilian farm are part of the Bengal species, having a larger caliber and a reddish skin, characteristics that make them naturally sweeter. Currently, the farm’s specialists are also studying working with the Chinese species B3.

The sustainable plantation at Olhos D’Água makes use of solar energy, irrigation, composting leaves and branches that would otherwise be discarded. According to Patrícia, reverence for nature is the main focus of the Farm.

“We work with minimum planting, a cultivation system that avoids practices that promote the physical degradation of the soil. Integrated pest management is carried out with chemical and biological agents, contributing to the ecological balance, which helps to increase biotic resistance and prevents the emergence of new pests. This way we have a higher quality production with less degradation of the environment”, explains the CEO.

She also explains that the first crops of fruit were planted between 2008 and 2010, and today this is the focus of the farm. The business, however, effectively started in 2013, with the first harvest of lychees.

The farm

In addition to the successful production of lychees, Fazenda Olhos D’Água also grows mangoes, avocados, bananas and citrus. All these fruits go directly to the company’s own industry, where the family produces sweets, jellies, chocolate bars, lychee bonbons, among others, and sells them at Empório Fazenda Olhos D’Água.

Olhos D’Água is also a great cradle of diversity. With more than 300 hectares of land, only about 30 are productive, the rest is preserved as forest. It has belonged to José Nogueira’s family since 1955, but it was only in 1982 that cultivation was started by the farmer’s son and Patrícia’s husband, Cássio Nogueira, who planted seeds and seedlings found all around the world, some of which were gifts from indigenous peoples of the Amazon during his fishing trips.

About Frutas do Brasil

Abrafrutas (Brazilian Association of Producers and Exporters of Fruits and Derivatives), in partnership with ApexBrasil (Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency), develops a project to support Brazilian exporters in their quest to expand their business; opening new markets; recognition and differentiation of Brazilian fruits; increase the healthy habit of consuming tasty and superior quality fruits. Since the project started in 2014, Frutas do Brasil aims to show that Brazil is a provider of quality fruits produced in a sustainable way.