Mabílio takes the position of Portugal Ventures after 12 million annual custard tarts – Companies
A traditional product with centuries of history, loved by foreigners in Portugal, but it was not easy to find around the world. The internationalization of pastel de nata became a business opportunity.
“This is how Nata Pura’s project was born from this market failure in 2013,” recalls Portugal Ventures, state venture capital that has just left the company founded and led by Mabílio Albuquerque, who in 2014 “risked to test the product at the fair in London, as it was necessary to understand the receptivity of potential customers, before moving forward with the project”.
Two years later, with the business model fine-tuned, Mabílio finally obtained an investment of 700 thousand euros by Portugal Ventures, character to enter new markets and reach large-scale operators, desirably in metropolises with 50 million inhabitants.
“After five years of working together with the Portugal Ventures team and with 12 million custard tarts sold, Nata Pura (from the By Foods group) regains its stake in the company, with the aim of guaranteeing its full autonomy and domain of the markets where they operate, “announced the public venture capital, this Wednesday, December 15, in a statement.
The By Foods group is controlled by Mabílio Albuquerque, a professor who, with the support of Portugal Ventures, managed to transform pastel de nata into a “commodity”.
“Thinking and dreaming globally, this is an example of a project that from the very beginning was selected exclusively for foreign markets – 99% of sales are international, with only 1% of its turnover in Portugal, with a point of sale in Portugal. Sintra”, stresses Portugal Ventures,
Mabílio Albuquerque says that “pastel de nata had to be liberalized, as did French donuts, macaroni, muffins, cupcakes or croissants. Our goal was to present it as a product with enormous potential to become a ‘staple’,”. a ‘commodity’ in the global market”.
The revealed confesses that “the creation of Nata Pura was a learning process”, as “I didn’t know anything about pastel de nata, logistics, palletizing, etc.”
“This process required a lot of resilience, analysis of the error and belief. We were only able to establish when the word problem is prohibited”, he defends.
“Nata Pura confirmed all its potential, reaching sales of over 3.5 million euros, promising to expand its presence all over the world, with an increasingly diversified product offer. In this way and with this investment, the Portugal Ventures fulfilled one of the objectives of the ‘call’ that the company applied for at the time – that of contributing to the dynamization and innovation of more traditional industries”, emphasizes Filomena Pastor, investment director for the engineering and manufacturing area of Portugal Ventures .
Company headquartered in Candal Park, in Vila Nova de Gaia, with a team of just eight people, By Foods exports Nata Pura to 30 markets, including those in Europe, Asia, Middle East and North America, in food retail chains like Costco, Prêt-a-Manger, Domino’s Pizza and Paul Bassett in Korea.
“Being the pastel de nata with the most awards won internationally, a Nata Pura will continue to attest to its ability to scale, not only in new markets, but also in markets where they are already installed, but where, for now, they still only supply one channel.”
Mabílio Albuquerque’s goal is that “all over the world order a Nata Pura instead of a Pastel de Nata, as is already the case in South Korea”, he says.
Portugal Ventures has already carried out the divestment this year in 17 companies in its portfolio, with emphasis on the latest sales operations from Mercadão to Glovo and from Zaask to Worten.