Just because you\u2019re the grandson of an entrepreneur doesn\u2019t mean life is always a bed of roses, and Miguel Faria is living proof of that. The ever-present figure of his grandfather, Commander Vasco Faria, now aged 83, reminds him of the high standards he must live up to, even in the responsibility entrusted to him: taking over the management of the Focor Group\u2019s agri-food business, which grew out of his grandfather\u2019s hobby of buying up farms. That hobby gave rise to a new business area which, in 2014, was worth 8 million euros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy grandfather had \u2013 and still has \u2013 an extraordinary business acumen, with a seemingly innate ability to foresee the future. It\u2019s not easy to live up to that, but I\u2019ll give it a go,\u201d admits the 32-year-old, who holds two degrees: one in automotive engineering from England and another in marketing management from Portugal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By training, the first thing he did when challenged to take charge of the four farms and four estates that his grandfather had \"collected\" was to handle the marketing of the wine, grapes, and olive oil produced between Minho and Alentejo. \"Before, wine was sold simply with a label stuck on the bottle, the boxes were blank, it didn't matter. It was believed that if the product was good, it would sell well. Now it's not like that, the competition is fierce and building a brand is very difficult,\" explains the director of the agri-food sector of the group whose main activity is textile dyes and which achieved a total turnover of 23 million euros last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most valuable brands in the food sector are Vinho Verde (Encosta do Xisto) and Alentejo wine (Vale Barqueiros), with the latter also set to launch a range of gourmet olive oil. Olive oil is, in fact, the crop that covers the largest area (1,100 hectares), whilst wine (240 hectares) brings the brands greater recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen it comes to the retail sector, agriculture today is much more about the market than the product itself, even though we\u2019re not in the market to engage in a price war but to focus on quality,\u201d explains Miguel Faria. Even so, regarding the olive oil he has been selling in bulk \u201cto the major market players\u201d, the manager insists he has no cause for complaint about the prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been doubling our prices year on year, which is why we\u2019ve been putting off launching our own-brand range,\u201d he explains. But the manager eventually admits that there is a strategy behind this \u201cmiracle of price multiplication\u201d: \u201cWe\u2019re always keeping an eye on the Spanish harvests and olive oil prices, and we only release our own stock when they\u2019ve run out of olive oil and the price goes up,\u201d explains Miguel Faria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, they produced 720 tonnes of olive oil, 50 per cent of which was exported to Spain and Italy. As for wine, out of a total of 520,000 litres, the majority (66 per cent) is sold on the domestic market and the remainder is exported to Brazil, Canada, Luxembourg, Denmark, Lithuania and Switzerland. At the same time, 1,500 tonnes of grapes are \u2018sold to other producers\u2019, in a business which, although traditional, increasingly involves research and innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEver since my grandfather\u2019s time, we have had a partnership with the University of C\u00e1ceres which enabled us, at a time when the country was lagging far behind in agriculture \u2013 in the early 1980s \u2013 to be the first to introduce drip irrigation. Now, we are going to trial a new technique for planting olive groves,\u201d says the manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPortugal lacks genuine managers in the agricultural sector. What I realised at the last trade fair we attended, in D\u00fcsseldorf, is that we manage to be unbeatable in terms of value for money, but we\u2019re neither very cheap nor very good,\u201d he concludes, adding: \u201cI never thought I\u2019d end up in agriculture; I was asked to give it a go and I liked it. That\u2019s how it has to be; you need passion and the ability to deal with the unexpected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n