The Sebastião
Our History
The first steps
From a humble background, son of a family composed by 03 men and 02 women, Sebastião was born in the dry hinterlands, in the state of Paraíba, on November 11th, 1957. Forced by circumstances, he started working at a very young age as a “rural tree stump remover”.
Later, he moved to the capital of Paraíba, where he was hired by a company as a night security guard. In the company’s courtyard, there were some mango trees filled with the fruit. At dawn, right after the end of his working hours, after permission granted, Sebastião picked the ripe mangoes and sold them door-to-door on his way back home, and split the money with his manager.
From the courtyards to the world
The mango commerce was very successful. For that reason, in 1977, Sebastião resigned from the company he worked in to fully dedicate to his own business. He started purchasing the fruit from his neighbors’ yards, until the day he was able to open a small spot in his town’s free-trade fair. In October 1997, as his sales was growing intensely, he managed to rent half a ‘Box’ at CEASA (a central of supply and sale of horticultural products (fruit, vegetables, etc.) in the city of Rio de Janeiro.
In 2002, The São Francisco Valley was presented to Sebastião. It’s a region with a fertile soil, drained by the São Francisco river and its tributaries, and it’s also an important product supplying center to his stores in Rio de Janeiro. At that moment, he had a vision of a great opportunity of expanding even more his remarkable project, also investing in the agricultural production, opening not only new horizons to business, but also a new path and a mission to all of his family members.
Tremendous professional support from his sons
Robson de Lima Araújo has been responsible for all the phases of production and the fruit processing since 2002. Originally, he had 15 hectares. Nowadays, he has 432 hectares.
Ronaldo de Lima Araújo is responsible for the marketing, a company’s department, which began in 1997, in a half a rented Box. Later, it was expanded to four flagship stores inside CEASA in Irajá (located in the capital of Rio de Janeiro), where he is known as Sebastião da manga.
Strength in the family
His company is a family business, which is administrated by four people: Sebastião Martins de Araújo (father), Ana Maria de Lima Araújo (mother) and his two sons, Robson de Lima Araújo and Ronaldo de Lima Araújo.