A new import company called Aodaci is being launched at the start of 2024. The initiators are Alexandre Gil and Luis Calado, who are both well-known and well-connected within the industry due to their long-term involvement with Stricker. Based in Coimbra, Portugal, Aodaci is positioning itself as a sustainable player on the higher-quality price segment, will operate under the umbrella of the Testa Group and will cooperate with Stricker in the logistics and sales area. Gil and Calado spoke with eppi magazine about the launch and the company’s future alignment and strategy.
Mr. Gil, Mr. Calado, one immediately associates you both with the company Stricker, where you were both employed for a long time and on whose behalf you took part in many international trade shows. How did it come about that you have now founded your own import company?
Luis Calado (l) and Alexandre Gil.
Alexandre Gil: Aodaci is an idea that arose over the past year, which we have now put into practice. We are following a new approach and are developing a range of high quality products with a clear flavour of the retail market. At the same time, we are placing a strong emphasis on sustainability. The focus is clearly to avoid overlap with existing offers, hence almost all the products we bring out onto the market are in one way or another tailor-made own designs.
Luis Calado: We clearly avoided the shelf products of Asian suppliers. Having said that, we also included some classic models in the collection, but in these cases we innovate in the materials, focusing either on recycled or sustainable components.
How is the company Stricker actually getting on? Some rather unpleasant news spread through the industry recently.
Alexandre Gil: Every major stockkeeper has faced ups and downs during the last decade, which is understandable for a business model that is cash heavy and with so little predictability. Stricker was no exception and during 2022 and 2023 there was some relevant restructuring that allowed the company to be a major player within the promotional industry again.
Luis Calado: The fact that we have entered a partnership with Stricker which involves them carrying out a number of our processes – most notably the warehousing, printing and commercial development – is an expression of our confidence in Stricker’s long-term future.
Did you both leave Stricker after founding the new company?
Calado: In my capacity as CSO, I will be working entirely for Aodaci in future while Alexandre will simultaneously be CEO at Aodaci and Head of Sales at Stricker.
Who is backing the new company financially?
Alexandre Gil: Testa Group is the major shareholder of the company, which gives us the financial stability and backing needed for a project of this magnitude. With a turnover already surpassing 200 mil. Euros, Testa is a multinational company present in more than 50 countries with activities spread across the fields of industrial production and the wholesale of home appliances. The move to the promotional industry aims to diversify its portfolio and is seen as a strategic and long-term and not simply a financial investment. Therefore, in Testa we have found the perfect partner to sustain a long term growth that we envisage for Aodaci.
Aodaci will offer a range of high quality hard goods with a clear flavour of the retail market and a strong emphasis on sustainability.
Where does the name “Aodaci” come from?
Luis Calado: Aodaci is derived from the English word “audacious”, which means bold, courageous – and that is exactly what we would like to be with our new approach and our offer of products.
Which product groups will your partners in the promotional products trade find at your company?
Luis Calado: We consider ourselves to be a full-range stockist for hard goods and are developing a wide selection of items in this section. Our strong points are clearly the segments of bags, drinkware and technology. Whereby we will not sell textiles.
How many products are you starting off with?
Luis Calado: We dared to make a massive investment from the onset and are starting off with around 300 products and 1,000 stock-keeping references. Many of these items are already own designs and we intend to successively increase the share of exclusive items. We are developing different collections within our line-up, for example one partial collection has an “American flavour” design. Regarding the quality, we are orienting ourselves on the retail sector.
Alexandre Gil: At the same time, we are placing a strong focus on sustainability: Each product will be made from at least 50% environmentally-friendly or recycled materials. We also offer compensation measures, such as an own forest that we plant trees in or carbon offsetting through certified projects.
How does the product development and procurement work?
Alexandre Gil: We had to find multiple new sources of supply because many of our products are of higher quality and focus more strongly on sustainability. The actual assortment choice falls exclusively under our responsibility.
Luis Calado: It is worth mentioning that we have developed a strong partnership with Rupt USA since April, in creating a new brand (Rupt) with a marked “American” taste. This specific collection will have stocks on both sides of the Atlantic, enabling multinational companies to run marketing campaigns in both Europe and the USA simultaneously. This is also itself a new offer in the market that was constantly demanding this bilateral logistic capacity.
How many employees are working for Aodaci?
The Aodaci management team (f.t.l.): Duarte Reis (CPO), Pedro Morgado (Shareholder), Marco Ramos (CTO), Alexandre Gil (CEO) and Luís Calado (CSO).
Luis Calado: We count with a team of around 20 people. We aim to keep small teams since that give us a flexibility and reactivity that usually becomes harder with larger structures. When does the company officially launch?
Alexandre Gil: By January 2, 2024 our operation will go live, meaning that clients will be able to register and place orders on our platform (aodaci.com). We will then present ourselves for the first time to the European promotional products trade on a broad scale at the PSI Show in Düsseldorf, further trade fairs will follow in the course of the first quarter.
What are your mid-term goals?
Luis Calado: First of all, we want to consolidate ourselves as a reliable partner to our clients, that is not only able to serve all the orders submitted professionally, but also innovates the market year after year.
Alexandre Gil: Broadly speaking, we want to be part of the change in our market, accelerating the process where the promotional industry is seen to be a compliant, socially responsible and useful market to the agents that we serve. In order to do so we need to constantly push the aim of using sustainable materials to make our products. At the same time we are launching innovative designs onto the market.
// Till Barth spoke with Alexandre Gil and Luis Calado
Photos: Aodaci
