Beverage Bottling Plant in São Paulo.
How a Brazilian beverage group compared suppliers from three continents on one landed-cost basis — and discovered the cheapest ex-works offer was the most expensive project. Anonymised for confidentiality.
Client profile & engagement record
- Client
- Family-owned beverage group, two plants, São Paulo state
- Scale at engagement
- ~600 staff, national distribution, running near capacity
- Trigger
- A new PET line needed for a fast-growing water and functional-drinks range
- Starting point
- Conflicting agent quotes in three currencies with different scopes and Incoterms
- Global B2B Group role
- Structured the requirement, issued one comparable RFQ across three supply regions and normalised landed cost. Supplier-neutral throughout; the buyer's board made the award.
Decision makers involved
- Managing Director — investment decision and supplier relations
- Industrial Director — line performance and integration
- CFO — financing mix, duties and currency exposure
- Logistics Manager — import, inland freight and installation windows
Engagement timeline
- Structuring
- Weeks 1–4 — capacity, bottle formats and acceptance criteria fixed in writing
- RFQ issued
- Week 5 — identical schedule to five suppliers across three regions
- Clarification
- Week 9 — single shared round covering duties, spares and commissioning scope
- Award
- Week 16 — contract signed after landed-cost normalisation
- Start-up
- Month 13 — commercial production reached within the agreed ramp curve
Engagement record verified against the RFQ file, the landed-cost workbook and the ramp-up report, and approved by the project owner before publication. Company name, site location and individual names are withheld under a confidentiality agreement; figures are rounded and published with the project owner's approval. Global B2B Group is supplier-neutral and does not manufacture, install, certify or lend.
Challenge
The buyer had collected agent quotes in BRL, EUR and CNY — each with a different scope, different Incoterms and different assumptions about who paid duties, inland freight and installation. Comparing them was impossible, and the board's working number for the project was nearly USD 2M below any defensible estimate.
Requirement structuring
The requirement was rebuilt as a single schedule: rated speed and efficiency guarantee, bottle-format changeover matrix, utilities and building adaptation scope, spares packages, commissioning support — and a commercial schedule that forced every bidder to state currency, Incoterms, duty treatment and payment milestones in the same structure.
- One commercial template forced comparable currency, Incoterms and milestone answers
- Efficiency guarantee defined with penalties and verification at SAT
- Building adaptation and utilities priced separately from the line itself
- Import duties and inland logistics modelled per supplier origin before comparison
Landed-cost normalisation
Five proposals returned. Normalised to delivered, installed and accepted — including duties, freight, currency exposure over the delivery period and commissioning scope — the ranking inverted: the lowest ex-works offer became the most expensive option, and a mid-priced European supplier with strong local service presence won on evaluated cost and risk.
- Landed-cost normalisation inverted the ex-works ranking
- Currency exposure over a 13-month delivery priced into the comparison
- Local service capability scored as a criterion, not discovered after award
- Development-bank facility timed against equipment milestones, not signature
Financing coordination
The project file was prepared in lender-readable form — equipment schedule, landed-cost model, milestone plan and off-take context. A BRL-denominated development-bank facility covered the core investment, with supplier-stage payments on the imported scope. Global B2B Group is not a lender, broker or financial adviser; approval, pricing and terms rested solely with the licensed institutions.
Controlled introductions
At no point was the buyer automatically connected to a manufacturer. Candidates were identified through technology-supported research, passed human review and fit validation against the written specification, and each commercial introduction was approved and coordinated by David and the authorised Global B2B Group team. Suppliers could not pay to be shortlisted, ranked or recommended.
Lessons learned
- Compare landed, installed and accepted cost — never ex-works prices across origins
- Put currency exposure in the evaluation, not in the risk register after award
- Score local service capability before you need it at 2 a.m. on a Saturday
- Time the financing facility to equipment milestones, not to contract signature
Build the same comparable technical and commercial schedule used in this engagement.
Local context for beverage and agro-industrial investment in São Paulo state.
Map your own FAT, shipping, SAT and commissioning dates onto one milestone plan.
How landed-cost normalisation and lender-readable documentation fit together.
Planning a similar project?
Global B2B Group can help you prepare a professional procurement strategy, identify qualified international suppliers, compare solutions objectively and explore suitable financing opportunities.