History
It all started in a family meeting. It was 1967 and the founder of the company had the idea of buying a soybean processing plant. The family already had a business in Ponta Grossa - Parana since 1964, IMCOPA - Importação e Comércio Parana - which imported and sold carburator parts to General Motors.
The company's shift to the soybean sector was a great step and brought prosperity through the development of soybean planting in Parana. In order to stimulate soybean planting in the area, IMCOPA started to distribute free soybean seeds to producers. This fact, besides guaranteeing its raw material production, significantly contributed to develop the industrial area that sprung up in the city of Ponta Grossa.
Still in 1967 the company became known as IMCOPA - Importação, Exportação e Indústria de Óleos Ltda. In that moment one of the country's most innovative soybean crushing business was born.
After going through ten years of continuous growth, the company's directors found that it was time to grow a little further. In 1977, the Araucaria - PR unit was inaugurated, which received considerable investments in technology, equipment and infrastructure, thus significantly expanding IMCOPA's overall production capacity.
In 2004, IMCOPA also started its operations in Cambe - Parana. This unit also produces standard soybean meal, hipro meal, soybean oil and lecithin and features one of the Brazil's most modern plants. Besides these two main plants (Araucaria and Cambe), IMCOPA also has branches in other Brazilian cities and states.
What started in 1967 with only 20-ton processed soybeans a day reached more than 5,500 tons daily in 2008 - with more than 95% the production being exported. Currently, IMCOPA is a reference in non-GMO and sustainable soybean processing and in marketing products to leading companies in several countries worldwide, like England, Germany, Norway, France, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, China, Japan and New Zealand. Its Araucaria unit is the largest soybean protein concentrate plant in the world and the only one in Latin America.