Seara Alimentos, owned by JBS, is the Brazilian consolidated company that includes poultry products, among other foods, with competitive and strong growth brands.
Based in São Paulo, it has 63,000 employees, processes 4.3 million chickens a day, although they expect to reach 5 million by mid-2020. According to the WATTPoultry.com Top Companies database, Seara produced 1.46 billion chickens in 2018. It also processes 21,000 pigs a day, so it holds a 20% pork market share in Brazil.
Seara has 14 distribution centers strategically located in 11 states, which makes Seara more productive and reduces costs. With more than 150,000 customers in the country, 62,000 of them are direct customers and the rest are served by 48 exclusive distributors. There are 48 processing plants, of which 30 are poultry plants and 18 are processing plants for various foods. Globally, the company has more than 700 customers and expectations are to double that amount.
The company reports net sales of $4.56 billion and has an EBIDTA of $1.5 billion, or one-third of net sales. About 57% of the food produced by Seara comes from poultry production. However, diversification includes 31% food processing, 9% swine, 2% turkey and 1% other foods.
Company markets
About 53% of sales are for the domestic market, while 47% are exports.
“Exports are a very important market for us, with great growth potential, but the domestic market is paramount for us,” said José Cirilo, executive marketing director.
As a result of the various acquisitions, Seara has several brands such as Seara, Seara Gourmet, Da Granja, Big Frango, Rezende, LeBon, and others, but improved with new developments. In Brazil, Seara sells almost half (48%) of the volume in the southeast of the country, 24% in the northeast, 15% in the south and 13% in the central-west and north.
In terms of marketing channels, the traditional market covers 47% of the volume, because it is a segment “poorly attended by most Brazilian domestic companies,” said Cirilo.
Supermarkets and hypermarkets, the second largest segment with 19%, helps Seara to get to know what is best for the consumer, while key accounts account for 6%.
Product categories
Seara's products sold on the domestic market are divided into several categories:
- Cold meats and sausages
- Frozen foods
- Chicken (fresh or frozen, whole or in pieces, natural and free-range)
- Pork (fresh or frozen cuts, and ingredients)
- Holidays (turkey, special poultry, smoked, loins)
- Spreads (margarines and pâtés)
One of the advantages of Seara is having all these categories and different brands and not to concentrate on a particular one.
Organic chicken is one niche product that Seara produces. | Benjamin Ruiz
Market share
In Brazil, the Sadia brand (owned by competitor BRF) is generally the leader, followed by Perdigão (also BRF) and Seara. Aurora and PIF PAF have a lower share.
“When we see market share in terms of value, we are pleased to announce that we are the market leader in frozen chicken, with 234,602 tons, or 21.8%,” said the Seara executive. Sadia has 20.2% and Perdigão has 21.4%. Five years ago, when JBS acquired Seara, this value was only half, showing Seara's potential in the brand, with large investments in quality, innovation, and technology.
Marketing strategies
Seara's marketing strategies are based on three pillars.
- Achieve leadership in ham, ready meals, and chicken in Brazil. Outside Brazil, the focus is on chicken.
- Consolidate quality characteristics, as it is clear that “the only way for more consumers to want our products is with high quality”. Seara products ─ before consumers ─ have “86% perception equal to or better than our competitors,” according to the tests carried out.
- “Premiumize” the brand through Seara Gourmet. The company has invested a lot in this, because “they are products that don’t even talk about quality,” because it is implicit. Those are products that make a difference in the consumer’s life: They feel pampered, they are very differentiated products and developed by Cordon Blue chefs.
Ways to achieve marketing impact
Seara is well known to the Brazilian consumer, so the company has realized that it needs proposals with emotional connection and that they are relevant in quality within innovation. To do this, Seara created communication integrated into a digital ecosystem, called the Q Lab, described lower in the article.
As for the foreign markets, the campaign is about how to “decommoditize” products, so that there is a connection with the consumer beyond food itself.
In these campaigns, they manage concepts such as nostalgia (the famous saudade in Portuguese), the feeling of being at home, the presence of families with young children or teenagers, with the slogan of “Quality that surprises.” These concepts have resulted in millions of video visits.
Working together
To innovate, the marketing team must work together with the research & development and quality assurance teams. The first one provides services such as media, branding, campaigns, and product categories.
The second ones, innovation, packaging, and the products themselves. Both areas are connected by analyzing consumer and purchasing trends, as well as trends in each category, processes, research and technology trends, a process which can take from 8 weeks to 9 months for product launch. An example of this was the development of the plant-based Incredible Hamburger.
“We have one of the best research and development groups in Brazil,” said Cirilo. Together with the marketing team, they turn projects into reality. Each month they perform analyses of what may happen in the next 18 to 24 months. They consider trends in food innovation, along with those of the consumer, so that Seara can choose what is most appropriate.
To give us an idea, Seara launched in 2019 more than 80 products (known as SKUs), a huge amount for a single company. Innovation accounts for 8% of the profits.
Trends in food
Four fronts have been identified at Seara: Technology, health, behavior, and experience, and from there, they take what they need.
For example, from a behavioral point of view, there is a lot of interest in flexitarian, vegetarian, and vegan diets, trends that are expected to increase by 40% from year to year. In the area of expertise, they have focused on snacks to consume on the fly or the effect of chefs, and around health, on protein consumption or clean labels.
The company's mapping has opened strategic fronts that will be Seara's field of action in Brazil over the next few years, more focused on the consumer.
What is the Seara Academy and Q Lab?
The Seara Academy was opened in 2016 with the aim of developing solutions for customers and consumers. Integrated by different technical areas, the academy carries out meetings and product evaluations. It focuses on innovation, quality, improvements in products and processes already existing in the company, always referenced by the Innovation, Sensory Analysis and Consumer Voice teams. It has sensory cabins, a room for focus groups, meeting rooms, experimental kitchen (with a specialized chef who certifies the products), gourmet area (barista) and a “churrascaria” (Brazilian steak house).
Innovation is not just about foods. Q Lab is a room with several people dedicated to analyzing and evaluating the way food is purchased and handled, as well as the connection with consumers. The walls are filled with huge screens where followers, likes or comments are monitored in real time on social media, by geographic area and by time. “With Q Lab you can see how serious we take this in Seara,” said Cirilo. Q means quality (qualidade in Portuguese), whether in products, communication, or investment decisions.
At Q Lab, you can see more of emotional aspects of the brand. That is why this digital intelligence lab was created, which brings together tools and human knowledge to establish a real-time connection with consumers, measures results, forecasts future scenarios, and more efficiently sorts business decisions. It is said that there is no other laboratory like this in the world, particularly of a food company.
The incredible burger
Among the new products Seara has a line of naturally-bred broilers, premium products, 100% organic chickens and the incredible hamburger. Created to surprise, their advertising says it is perfect for everyday life, combining lifestyle, without missing out on the pleasure of eating.
Seara Gourmet's Incrível Burger (incredible burger) is made of 100% vegetable protein (with 27 g of protein per unit), with meat flavor and texture. The ingredients that make it up are soy, sugar beet, wheat, garlic, and onion.
