Federico Machabanski, CCO and Founder en PARDES / CCO and Founder en Selectio / Sales expert / Retail / Toys / Baby items.
Every time I try to describe the Brazilian market and its toy factories, this question comes to my mind. I know Brazil is far from being China, but I find many reasons to ask this question.
In this first part of my article about Brazil, I will describe the Brazilian toy factories, a vital industry for this country.
If you ask anyone about toys in Brazil, hey will talk to you about Estrela, the most iconic company in this country. However, if they only talk about this company, they are very wrong; they are still in the past, more than 30 years ago, when Estrela was the king of South America. If you talk with someone who knows the Brazilian market and factories, and I’m one of them, they can give you much more information about many key players in this magnificent country.
First of all, and incredibly, in a small town in Brazil, within a 2/3 hour drive from Sao Paulo, you can find Laranjal Paulista, one of the biggest toy factory areas in the world per square meter and per population. I have been there many, many times, an it is incredible that you can find so many toy suppliers, with excellent quality plastic toys and dolls, in this very small place in the world. To name some of them, you can find Roma Jensen and Cotiplas, two iconic factories in the area, but there are many more.
In my many visits to Laranjal, it was incredible how in the same family, you can find two manufacturers of dolls and one plastic car, all with the same last name and competitive with each other. The people there are amazing and very kind; going for lunch to their local food places is terrific, and you can find the manager and the machine operator having lunch at the same places, talking, and sharing experiences, and many of them studied in the same school, knows each other family, etc.; so they are very kind and loyal with their company because if they are not family, they feel like they are.
But this is not the only place where you can find toy factories; in San Pablo, you can find a Marvel giant doll factory, the only one in the world that manufactures this size of Marvel Dolls ( if you don’t consider the ones for collection purposes ), you can also find a fantastic factory called Brinquedos Bandeirante, where they manufacture electric ride-ons, with outstanding quality and components; or also a factory that used to manufacture only pvc / vinyl balls, like Lider Brinquedos, and now they are into licensed dolls.
If you go to the south of Brazil, you can also find excellent factories in Caxias do Sul, like Xalingo Brinquedos, if you want to name only one of them.
I have been in most of these places, I have been talking with the owners in their cities, in their houses, with their families, knowing their sons, etc., and I can assure you most of them are kind, humble, honest, and hard-working people, no matter they are owners of a giant factory or a small one.
If you want to see all these factories together in one place, you must attend the Abrin Toy Fair, the most important toy fair in South America. The next edition of Abrin, after the historical event of 2023, will take place from March 3 to 6, 2024, when it reaches the 40 edition mark. Year after year, Abrin consolidates itself as the main toy event in Latin America and one of the most expressive in the world! In 2023 the fair reached a record number of visits: 18 thousand people in 4 days of the event.
The fair is co-organized by Francal Feiras and Abrinq – Brazilian Association of Toy Manufacturers.
3 thoughts