The São Francisco Plant Industrial Park is based in a privileged location among forests, cane fields and lush riverside vegetation. Its industrial process adopts the most modern production techniques, focusing on productivity, minimizing environmental impacts and workers´ safety. It all starts when organic cane arrives at the processing unit minutes after harvest, which fully preserves its natural characteristics. The weighing of loads starts a documentation process, enabling perfect production traceability. In the quality laboratory, the samples of organic cane are analyzed to be subsequently unloaded on the feeding table, which will take them to the preparation system to be disintegrated. All organic juice is extracted using a mechanical grinding process. As a result of this process, we obtain a juice of high purity and incomparable color, which is filtered and sent to the sugar factory.

The organic juice is deposited in tanks where mineral and vegetable impurities decant. These impurities pass through a vacuum filter, creating an important organic fertilizer that returns to the cane fields: the filter cake. Clean juice, on the other hand, undergoes a multiple-evaporation process, resulting in an organic syrup, with high concentration of sucrose, which is sent to vacuum cookers, where sucrose crystals are formed. The final crystallization product is composed of sucrose and molasses crystals.

Then, by means of a centrifugation, the sugar is separated from the molasses and it continues as a raw material for the production of alcohol. Organic sugar is dried and packaged in packaging that meets manufacturing standards and can be recycled after consumption. The final product is stored in warehouses specially dedicated to organic products. The entire process is monitored continuously and quality parameters are followed, which are regularly analyzed, issuing a quality certificate at the end of the production of each batch.

Quality has always guided all activities of Balbo Group companies. Officially, the Total Quality Program started in 1992, with the training of employees in the Industrial Division of São Francisco Plant. In December 1995, the implementation of this new culture was made possible thanks to the participation of all employees in the elaboration of Balbo Group´s Mission and Values statements.

The Industrial Division of São Francisco plant ISO certification process began in November 1996. In August 1998, after an audit carried out by BVQI (Bureau Veritas Quality International), the production processes for sugar, alcohol, yeast, fusel oil and bagasse were certified. In July 2010, São Francisco Plant's Industrial Division obtained a food industry BRC Certification and, in March 2011, it received the ISO 22000 certification.

All production is subject to international food safety systems, such as GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices), which aims to ensure food hygienic-sanitary conditions, eliminating possible risks of contamination, the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points System - HACCP, a method for preventing potential risk or dangers to food safety, housekeeping, cleaning and organization.

We have a serious commitment to quality. We want our consumers to enjoy tasty foods, compatible with the most stringent international quality criteria and produced from a world-class technological base.

Organic foods offer consumers much more nutrients, vitality and flavor, enabling a better quality of life. Its production process respects the environment and promotes social inclusion, benefiting society as a whole. In addition, the use of biological inputs, often from waste from the industry itself, avoids the purchase of synthetic chemical products, which in turn reduces the cost of production and increases support to the environment. The best thing is that this happens without any loss in productivity, as it can be seen in the graph below, representing the historical productivity of São Francisco plant, including the years before and after its conversion to an organic system.

This is an extremely important factor, since the vocation of any company is the generation of value for its shareholders and for society in the form of purchases from suppliers, salaries for employees, tax collection and social investment, among others. Growth and good economic and financial results are the mainstay of a company, without which its longevity is threatened.

Growing in the market, generating more foreign trade, distributing this wealth to society and contributing to the preservation of the environment is Native´s commitment.