Tiago Reis

Usina Santo Antonio S.A.

Usina Santo Antonio S.A. is part of business group, called Balbo Organization. Balbo family started their activities in the sugar sector in 1903, when Attilio Balbo started to work in "Engenho Central", in Sertãozinho, countryside of São Paulo State. During the following 43 years, Mr. Attilio and his sons specialized themselves in the several activities involving sugar production. By the end of this period of time, precisely in 1946, the family found Usina Santo Antonio (USA). With experience and knowledge they produced 1,383 metric tons of sugar in USA's first season, in 1947. By then the family didn't have a distillery or land for sugarcane cultivation. From then on our business steadily grew, always in cities located in São Paulo State. We acquired Usina São Francisco (UFRA) in 1956 and Usina Santana in 1962, both in Sertãozinho and Usina Perdigão in 1965 in Ribeirão Preto. These last two ones were incorporated to USA. In 2008 was inaugurated Usina Uberaba, a partnership between the Balbo Group and other business groups. Managed by men created in the cultivation and industrialization of sugarcane, the sugarmills registered expressive increase of the working power - today, 3,5 million tons of cane are crushed, generating 222 thousand tons of sugar and 162 thousand cubic meters of ethanol. The cane crushed by the plants is supplied by more than 300 independent suppliers and by Agropecuária Tamburi, company of the Balbo Group responsible for cultivating sugarcane in owned or rented lands, in the municipal districts of Sertãozinho, Ribeirão Preto, Jardinópolis, Dumont, Barrinha and Jaboticabal. There are 84% of area cultivated with sugarcane and 16% with other crops and native forests. When farming sugarcane, cereals and green manure leguminous are also cultivated as rotational crops. The plants are self-sufficient in energy, which is obtained from burning sugarcane bagasse.