Living in Canada for almost 10 years, Leonardo Barbosa, 44, from Pernambuco, has always made Brazilian food at home, a couple of immigrants.
He lives in Calgary, in the province of Alberta, in the west of the country. However, he found almost all the ingredients of Brazilian cuisine that he needed, except the traditional dried meat, or beef jerky.
According to him, the product could not be purchased anywhere in North America.
Leonardo and his wife, Adriana Barbosa, 42, moved to Canada in search of a better quality of life. He, an agronomist, was a merchant in Recife, and Adriana worked as a graphic designer.
Language
Certainly, when they arrived in the country, Adriana already mastered English and went to work with her brother, who had already stabilized in the country. Leonardo didn't speak a word of the language and went to work bagging potatoes.
Gradually he learned the language and managed to enter the market. Until, in 2016, a diagnosis changed the course of the couple's lives. Adriana was 5 months pregnant when she learned that the baby had Total Atrioventricular Septum, or TSVSD. However, the disease is characterized by a malformation that compromises the communication between the atria of the heart. Half of babies with the disease have Down syndrome.
After the first diagnosis, tests confirmed that the couple's child would be born with Down syndrome. “It was a huge blow to process that with so many expectations,” said Adriana.
From that day on, Leonardo accompanied his wife to all her medical appointments — and there were many. Absences at work caused him to be fired. When Oliver was born, Leonardo stayed at home to care for the child while his wife worked.
And it was just before the arrival of yet another cold season in Canada, while lying in a hammock, that Leonardo had the idea of risking a recipe that would change the history of the family. He salted and hung two pieces of meat in the kitchen of their apartment in Calgary.
“When he said he was going to do it here, I said, 'For God's sake, the house will smell.' I only thought about the practical part”, said Adriana. Leonardo insisted with his wife. He said he really missed it, that he was going to do it and that it was going to work. So when the meat was done, they called a couple of friends over for dinner. Leonardo began to think that perhaps he was facing a business opportunity.
northeastern cassava
“When they came in, she [a friend] already smelled it and she said: 'I know that smell'. Although I put boiled cassava on the table and, when I brought the meat with onions, she didn't even wait for me to put it on the table, she was already putting the fork and taking it out of the pot. Then she put it in her mouth, closed her eyes, then smiled. So she said, 'Where did you get it?' I said I had done it and she said: 'I want a kilo'.”
With the meat's taste approved, Leonardo decided it was worth a try. There were then 13 months of scientific research and development before production of jerky began in Canada. Dry meat, as it is prepared in Brazil, cannot be exported to North America because it does not comply with the laws of the countries.
Although the research process involved tests, analyses, everything was already documented and supported by the Canadian federal food inspection agency, the CFIA. At the time, he says, as there was nothing similar to dried meat, the product was analyzed with the strictest rules of Canadian legislation.
“They used the strictest criteria they had on the scale of meat production, because if we met all the strictest requirements, we would be safe from a technical/scientific point of view,” said Leonardo.
In the last phase of the tests, the flavor of the meat was still not what Leonardo wanted. On the way home, it was a song by Zé Ramalho that gave Leonardo the strength not to lose heart.
fix the mistakes
“I got into my truck disappointed, returning from the factory, and then Zé Ramalho started singing to me: 'Now I'll take a truck / I'll knock you out on the tarp again.' Then I said: 'wow, but I'm knocked out, but every fight a person is knocked out, there's always another fight and the person fights again to try for a rematch.' So I said: 'we were knocked out, but we can overcome'.”
Leonardo went back to his research, corrected the error and managed to make dried meat taste the same as the one he ate as a child in Brazil.
“The whole problem with the product is to develop the flavor. You're not just going to put salt on a piece of meat and you're going to make jerky. The person eats dried meat, it's not because he wants to eat dehydrated meat. Therefore, it wants to eat the flavor that is ingrained in its DNA. She grew up eating beef jerky. However, a piece of meat that tastes like the meat that her grandmother made, that her mother made,” he said.
Lead Foods
However, on July 11, 2018, with the company already registered under the name of Lead Foods, Leonardo sold the first box of dried meat, with a Canadian federal inspection seal. “The person who bought it put it on social media. That night I received nearly 100 emails from various parts of Canada.”
However, days later, the jerky became available for purchase online. Gradually, physical stores such as supermarkets and markets that sell Latin products began to sell dried meat and today there are 32 points of sale in the country. With his presence on the Canadian market underway, Leonardo embarked on an even more daring achievement: entering the American market.
Therefore, the company already has an online platform prepared to ship throughout the country, and Leonardo Casal also has a list of physical stores interested in reselling dried meat.
So he says that in Canada he has already received many emotional messages from Brazilians who have tried his dried meat and that now it is the turn to take the product with a Northeastern flavor to more Brazilians.
Children
As such, the company, which employs around 12 employees, allows Leonardo time to dedicate himself to his son, Oliver, 3. The boy changed the couple's history, and Leonardo says he is like a light.
“He is a very happy child today. He exudes joy, he is contagious. No one gets serious around him.”
When he remembers the beginning of his journey in the country, Leonardo is still moved. “I came here without English. Today I am registered with the provincial institute of agronomists and have telephone conversations with the inspection staff of the Canadian government, US government. I deal with high ranking people that I never imagined in my life. For an immigrant, who came here without speaking English, without knowing what he was going to do with his life, it is a lot.”
