Is it necessary to be big to compete in agribusiness? A case study on innovation in a rice processing agroindustry

Abstract

In the State of Rio Grande do Sul, it is possible to check a tendency of market concentration in the rice processing sector, for the processing requires production scale due to high fixed costs, which tends to eliminate companies with smaller industrial structures from the market. This study aims to examine the possibility of a rice industry, which is not based on production scale, being able to remain on the market. For this we used the case study of a processing industry working with non-traditional varieties. This study is qualitative and used content analysis and lexical navigation to analyze the collected data. It was concluded that there are ways of acting in a market where the scale gains are a competitive advantage. It just takes focus on the market, to generate innovations and act managing relationships within the supply chain.