United States. At AHR Expo 2023 we were able to interview Antonio Gobi and Rodnei Peres, CEO and commercial deputy director of Full Gauge Controls respectively. They told us about the results of their participation in the fair and the international projection of the brand, as well as the perspective of sales.
ACR How has the fair been?
Antonio Gobi: very good, every year we have good results with this fair. This year is even better than last year, here we continue to expose the 156 different models of solutions that we manufacture mainly for refrigeration.
ACR, how has that growth been in recent years for the brand? Well, it started in Brazil and made its way to other markets in Latin America, Europe and even Asia.
Antonio Gobi: It started many years ago, from the first time we exhibited at this fair, which was in 2001. Today we have a presence in China, Germany and Mexico, in many other countries we have fairs every year, an approximate is that we did more or less 23 fairs in different countries per year, this helps us to continue growing in the foreign market.
ACR. Rodnie, due to your experience it is important to also know your opinion. How have you seen, from your perspective, the growth of the brand and the importance it gives to the Latin American region?
Rodnei Peres: Although Brazil is our main market, the region's exports already represent 50 percent of what we manufacture. Markets that are of great value such as Mexico, Colombia (the main market after Brazil) and the United States.
So, based on our sales perspective, this year the United States is going to be the main foreign market for us.
ACR. On the subject of physical growth, how are the plans to expand the manufacturing plants and expansion of the brand going?
Antonio Gobi: We totally believe the products we sell, this story begins in the 70s of the last century, because my partner and I work together in a major airline in Brazil. We work in this area and in other companies, we were at Petrobras working with process automation. Our life up to that moment was always with high-precision automation because the risk was very strong in aviation and in the oil industry, later we transferred that knowledge to the refrigeration business.
That is why since May 2005 our guarantee is 10 years against manufacturing defects, but our quality continues to grow. We have the great impulse to continue growing more and more in quality because the issue of preserving perishables such as food, vaccines and medicines is very important.
ACR. You have more strength in some Latin American countries. Which are those countries that you refer to as the most important for doing business?
Rodnei Peres: We have more than 80 countries, to which we export today, they are important. Of course, due to different sizes, it is more important or not, but today we can mention Brazil first, then Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and the United States. We could also add Peru and Ecuador.
ACR. Finally, what plans, projects and ideas does the brand have for the coming months, what is coming this year and the coming years?
Rodnei Peres: We don't stop, we have an engineering body where we divide the work into software, firmware and hardware, we are always preparing new models.
We are going to have more lines of electronic expansion valves, two new models are coming this first quarter of the year, two new models for voltage monitoring, control and protection.
