Correio Newspaper | Brigadeiro empire: see how mother and daughters earn R $ 3 million

They invented Carimbinho and Colherzinha for brigadeiro, as well as building, in Feira de Santana, an ecosystem that includes a physical bakery, an online store and a digital course platform

Almost an entrepreneur for every corner. You can hardly walk down any street without seeing someone there who isn’t selling something, formally or informally. Today there are over 1.154 million small formal businesses in Bahia. Of these, 819.9 thousand are micro individual entrepreneurs (MEIs) and 355 thousand are micro and small companies. Entrepreneurship has become one of the most productive sectors that drives the Bahian economy and also generates jobs.

The latest data comes from the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae) and says a lot about the amount of opportunities for entrepreneurs in a situation that increasingly demands stability, innovation, competitiveness and technology , whether it is a small, medium business. or big Currently, the main activities with the largest number of Meis are based in the retail trade of clothing and accessories (6.9%), followed by hairdressing, manicures and pedicures (6.1%).

Small and medium-sized companies stand out in the trade of general goods, with a majority of food products such as mini markets, grocery stores and warehouses (6.7%). The challenges are as great as the desire to see your business succeed, especially as being an entrepreneur is not easy. It is no coincidence that brands that started very small, such as A Brigadeirinha, have expanded in such a way that they have now diversified their business and work in several areas, from corporate sweets to development product, e-commerce and certification courses. See below with Brigadeirinha has become a real empire in the brigadeiro sector not only in Bahia, but also in Brazil.

“Brigadeirinha started with my mother, Patty, wanting to change her field. She worked with custom made cookie crafts, but she was passionate about sweets. Since she was already making pies and bread for her own family, she saw the opportunity in the confectionery of a new business .Feira de Santana, in a rented space on the street from our house. Together with me and my sister Amanda, we dedicated ourselves to make my mother’s dream come true and that’s how A Brigadeirinha became a family project.

The first store was just a display, two small tables, a small stove, a refrigerator, a makeshift sink and a countertop. However, we had to close our little shop. It was necessary to take this step back in order to take several more steps forward. We started again a few months later in the home kitchen and, from then on, our business started to flourish. We promote it on social media, which has made our sweets and cakes so famous in town.

Brigadeirinha grew up. We have more than 20 employees in our company and an ecosystem consisting of Casa Brig (confectionery), Loja Brig (online store) and Brig Clube (online course platform). In addition to Carimbinho – which was so successful that our stocks ran out in less than 15 minutes on the website – we developed the technique of dyeing brigadeiros. We started with seven kits and today there are over 70 kits with different themes. We also created another tool to help with production: the Small Spoon, suitable for dividing the brigadeiro dough.

In other aspects of the business we always try to innovate, through developing different flavors at each time of the year – such as jackfruit brigadeiro in the summer, corn at the June festivals, bacon on Father’s Day and even panettone at Christmas time – and we bring these new features to the courses. Around 1,000 students took our face-to-face courses and over 8,000 took our online courses.

I feel very proud. I am proud that we had the courage to start and the resilience to continue making it work. I am proud to generate jobs for our city and sweeten the lives of many people. We are currently earning around R $3 million a year, considering all aspects of the company. We intend to organize our internal processes more and more, aimed at increasing profitability, for the future expansion of Casa Brig’s activities, the implementation of new products at Loja Brig and more content production on social networks A Brigadeirinha, aiming to reach many more students through Brazil.

The recipe is to be passionate about what you do. Success is a result of this. As an entrepreneur, my dream is to help others achieve financial freedom and a better life, showing that it is possible to turn your suffering into a source of income.

Giovanna Guimarães one of the creators of A Brigadeirinha (@abraiddeirinha). Together with her mother Patrícia and sister Amanda, Giovanna built a brigadeiro ’empire’ in Bahia

Agenda Bahia is organized by Jornal Correio with financial support from Acelen, Tronox and Unipar, institutional support from FIEB, Sebrae and support from Bracell, Grupo Luiz Mendonça – Bravo Caminhões e Ônibus and AuraBrasil, Plano Brasil Saúde, Port- Air Salvador Bahia, Shops Salvador, Wilson Sons and a partnership with Braskem.