History

ROQUE VALENTE SRL is by itself a pretty new company and most of the worldwide buyers may not know of its existence. However, the CEO’s are in business for a very long time and their origin is Brazil.

Just recently Brazil has been shaken up and tries to restrict illegal logging overnight. The problem is that most land’s ownership is undefined, which means that any time – mostly indigenous people – put their claim on it. This is by the way not just a forest – outback problem – the same is true in cities like Rio de Janeiro, where over 30% of the properties (slums/ favelas) are undefined. In the past people set up their wooden shelter and the next day all of a sudden there was a new neighborhood in town. The local government lacked to take appropriate action and now they think they are able to solve this overnight.

Delivery reliability

Due to Brazil’s unpredictability and therefore customers’ delivery unreliability, the partners decided to move installations into neighboring Bolivia where everything is unexpectedly much more structured. Just like with the rigid requirements of FSC, Bolivia is well mapped and every single tree is dotted on a satellite map. That’s why Bolivia is in the lead with the largest extension of natural tropical FSC certified forests worldwide. See more on certification.

For us – producers – this means that we can manage our production in a stable and decent way, opposed to wait and run practices in Brazil when nobody knows whatever may happen tomorrow or even today. Predictable environment means stable capacity planning which in turn means lower costs and for you – buyer – a lower purchase price besides reliable delivery.

CEO and company structure/ quality

In short two main people are ROQUE VALENTE’s backbone, the owner himself is in charge of commercial activities and is also responsible for the quality and the output. The co owner is in charge of logging, logging transport and the sawing. Both make use of many other people. The owner’s background is a Master’s degree and extensive experience in export, his strength is the ‘paperwork’ of the business, while the co owners’ strength is the hardware side, such as trucking, managing the mill etc. However, while molding – and subsequent quality control – André is always present by directing his (not Marcello’s) employees:

ROQUE VALENTE is as a matter of fact two companies. In the past, we had some bad experience when doing everything under one roof. Now the owner and the co owner are two separate entities, which enables one party to reject bad quality and also stimulates the other party to produce in time and cost effective. Everything is organized on the same acre, however, nothing inhibits the owner to buy elsewhere. Things are related by the owners’ investment money of a fully electronic controlled sawing mill, used by the other party.

Location

As ROQUE VALENTE is a two legged company, so is its business. Most spare parts are to be found in the city Santa Cruz, almost 600km away from the sawing mill. Also, all export documents can only be prepared in the city, besides banking and the fact that at the sawing mill there is just no internet connection at all. For this reason the owner is 2 out of every 3 days in the city while the co owner is always at the sawmill.

Sellers’ and buyers’ match

ROQUE VALENTE has its own (certified) forests, 3 trucks, a molding machine, two saw mills, of one which is electronically controlled. The main products are mostly decking, S2S for flooring, and the rest is other products such as banisters, stairs, moldings, handrails, massive hardwood garden sets. In respect of species more then 50% is ipe, on the second place barauna and then fine flooring species. In total there are over 20 different species available.

Capacity is for the moment not limited by the raw material (logs) but financial resources. Nowadays we are do around 500m³ monthly.

Other information, check our sites such as: discounts, terms and conditions, contact information