It is an about one and a half-hour drive to the east of São Paulo to come to Jacareí, the beer capital of Brazil. It has this sobri­quet because here you have the highest produc­tion of beer in the whole nation. What most people in Brazil might not know: Also Uhlmann Brazil is located in Jacareí, managed for twelve years now by Johannes Mayer.

Johannes came to Brazil as a project manager several times and fell in love with the country and the people – well, mostly with the woman who is his wife now. Nowa­days, as the Managing Director, he is the head of a total of 30 employees in the indus­trial zone of Jacareí, surrounded by other inter­na­tional compa­nies. Also the Group compa­nies KOCH and WONDER are located there.

Larger site in Jacareí

Two and a half years ago, Johannes and his team moved across the street to a building three times as big as the one before. “This allows us to install our demo machines here”, the Managing Director states. The hall holds machines by WONDER from China, a track & trace module and also customer machines such as a UPS 1030 by our customer Euro­farma. “We will completely over­haul it and bring it back into its orig­inal condi­tion”, Johannes says.

When Uhlmann entered the Brazilian market, the team consisted only of a handful of people. Much has happened since then. Johannes Mayer: “In the mean­time, we import spare parts from Laupheim and China, and also sell, market and take care of machines by WONDER. On top of this, we import format parts and elec­trical and mechan­ical upgrades. At the begin­ning of 2021, we started to manu­fac­ture format parts.”

Uhlmann Brazil: Service is the magic word

The main busi­ness of Uhlmann Brazil consists of servicing machines, about one third of all employees works in this area. “Our customers here are mainly owner-managed compa­nies such as Euro­farma and EMS. We have sold eight lines to both of them over the past four years. The big global players like Pfizer or Bayer are pulling out of the market because it is not inter­esting for them. Instead of this, there is a rela­tively high number of generics compa­nies that push the market.”

The rela­tion­ship to the customers is good, but, as Johannes puts it, it requires Brazilian flex­i­bility. “Swabians some­times find this diffi­cult.” In Germany you are used to the fact that – once a plan has been estab­lished – every­thing is done according to plan. In Brazil, however, you might be in the middle of a project and all of a sudden, a customer turns into a different direc­tion.

German values held in high esteem in Brazil

But Brazil­ians hold Uhlmann as a German company, and the values which it repre­sents, in high esteem. “We stand for reli­a­bility – no matter if it concerns price agree­ments or avail­ability”, Johannes Mayer explains. And he considers it his personal mission that it stays this way.

The terri­tory, in which Uhlmann Brazil serves customers, is huge: Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile together form the “Mercosur”. And then add Brazil to this. Johannes strives for serving these customers with his own team as far as this is possible. Some­times, there is support by colleagues that come from Germany to assist in service deploy­ments, but this becomes rarer and rarer, also due to the Covid pandemic.

Life takes place outdoors

Johannes Mayer feels well and at ease in Brazil. He welcomes his team at the company always with a cheerful “Bom Dia” (Good day). This might have to do with the Brazilian sun and atti­tude to life. “We eat outdoors on about 300 days a year”, he says. “Life here takes place mostly out of the house.” In his free time, Johannes then also fully enjoys what life in Brazil has to offer – kite surfing is one of his hobbies, and also standup paddling.

Having fun in the water: In his free time, Johannes Mayer likes to kite surf.

Cruising through the sand with a beach buggy is also fun for Johannes and his wife.

There is so much to see in Brazil: Here, Johannes and his wife enjoy the Brazilian nature sites.

But also his job is not boring at all. “There are always ups and downs in the Brazilian economy”, he says. And that this has mainly to do with the exchange rates and the govern­ments, which often have large effects on the country. But Johannes Mayer and his team have learnt to ride these prover­bial waves.