Bhars was born as a result of the puzzle of my life.

​

It was not something unique and specific. But the sum of various experiences and insights accumulated over an entire history.

The first insight appeared in 2013, one day in Carla's kitchen in Higienópolis/Brazil. We were cooking, drinking wine and I was drunk. Carla was making a Bolognese sauce for pasta, a recipe she had learned from an American chef on TV.

​

The sauce turned out fantastic and I had a deep feeling of "certainty" that if I packaged that sauce and sold it, the sauce would be considered disparately the best on the market. And I drunkenly said: “We should package that sauce and sell it! I wonder how much people would pay for that.” And I laughed... That idea remained latent in my subconscious.

​

Ironically, Carla never repeated the recipe! Looking back, maybe the recipe came just for that, to give me that "start" in moving the pieces of the puzzle that was creating Bhars.

​

After a while, still in 2013, we were providing a commercial representation service for the company of Carla's friend's Portuguese husband, Victor. It was a "bico" as we call temporary work in Brazil. He produced Portuguese sweets, and among the various sweets was the Pastel de Nata (Modesty aside, it was an exceptional product). The company was based in Recife/Pernambuco - Brazil.

​

My duty was to coordinate the entry of the company’s branch in São Paulo and structure it to operate in the São Paulo market. I basically did a little bit of everything: structuring the fiscal and tax part of the São Paulo company, administrative and financial duties, designing the product box, design and even delivered the Pastéis de Nata to the customer, driving an old Fiat Fiorino with dry ice up to the roof, which I used to buy at 5 in the morning somewhere far as fuck because the product was ultra-frozen and had to be delivered within certain temperature rules at Walmart, their main customer at the time.

​

One fine day we were called to Walmart's headquarters in Barueri for a meeting. Victor wanted to present to the buyer the other products he produced in the factory. In the middle of the meeting, Victor, besides offering the Portuguese sweets, also ended up offering "brigadeiro" that he made.

​

Victor took the folder with the picture of the brigadeiro, took a Tupperware with the brigadeiros and when he put it on the table, the Walmart buyer said to him: “Do you know how many companies we have in our portfolio that sell brigadeiro? More than 200! Don't you have anything different to offer me?"

​

When he said that phrase, there was the epiphany that created Bhars: Instead of selling other people's products, why don’t I create a company that sells different and amazing products created by us!??

After thinking this, I remained mute, distant and introverted for the rest of the meeting and the day, while inside me the apocalypse happened! An infinite kaleidoscope of ideas, feelings, life experiences, smells, colours and textures came together in one idea, like a stained glass window through which the light passes and reveals a long-hidden image. Einstein, Pythagoras, Lavoisier and so many other unknown creators in the world must have had the same feeling as me, the same revolution, the same certainty that their life from that point on would never be the same. I recognise them at this point.

From this genesis I started to study the universe of food at any time I could, every day, month, year! I knew what I had to do, I knew where to look for the rest of the pieces.

The idea of internationalization came immediately. It was an intrinsic idea because I understood that I should use the same strategy as the American and European companies of the post-war 1950s and with the understanding that the company could not be just "one more Brazilian company", but should be an international company, a multinational.

I took a certain distance and looked at the stained glass window formed, all the pieces, the whole. I saw the size of the Herculean challenge. I knew I needed help, that I could not build this whole universe by myself and I thought - "The tree is too big and I need other gardeners to help me take care of it because it will bear many fruits".

And then I talked to Carla about the idea, what I wanted to do, how, when and why. I showed her the first "chart/planning" for building the company. The steps to be followed. The important points. I told her we should become partners in this venture because I knew she would help me.

3 years later all the mosaic pieces were in place and Bhars was officially created, on the date of 30 April 2015. Now it was time to get down to business! By OFM