Derivados de açúcar: internacionalização na cadeia produtiva do açúcar na segunda metade da década de 1990

Abstract

This paper identifies a new way of sugar utilization for food industry supplying: the production of specific ingredients. It analyzes the occurrence of association among sugar mills and sugar products manufacturers in the context of productive deregulation and market globalization in the second half of the 90´s. The manufacturers of specific ingredients (sugar products) established associations and joint-ventures with sugar mills in order to guarantee sugar supplying. An important consequence of this process was the internationalization of the section of sugarcane second (and first) agricultural processing by means of those strategic alliances. These companies have the knowledge of productive processes of specific ingredients (based on biotechnology) which, when compared with conventional processes, presents great variation in productivity and production costs. There is a combination of the sugar mills capabilities for agricultural production and the technological qualification of transnational entities for the production of sugar derivatives.