History
The Christovao family has been involved in international commerce for five (5) generations. We began in Portugal in the late 1800’s with Europe being the primary market. Joseph Christovao III, wanting to expand our market presence, immigrated to New York to market Portuguese tomato paste in bulk to food processors in North America from his Tribeca office at 100 Hudson Street beginning in 1960.
1960 – 1974 North American Agent for the Portuguese Cooperatives. 1975 – 1988 Importer of tomato paste from Italy, Turkey, Mexico, Spain and Chile. 1981 – Present – North American and Australian exclusive distributor for Gerber Products Company processed banana facility in Costa Rica. 1988 – 2000 majority owned and managed a Chilean tomato paste and canned tomato processing plant. 2001 – present – Domestic Broker and Exporter of California tomato paste world wideToday, 4th generation siblings Marie and Joe Christovao manage the New York office located in downtown Manhattan at 225 Broadway.
Goal
Mercantum’s management has a wealth of experience (some would say a lifetime already) in logistics and in the food ingredient market, supplying each year the largest and most discerning buyers in the food industry worldwide. We would like to tap our strengths in our markets with our buyers to expand our ingredients
Our primary markets are the Americas (from Canada to Chile) as well as Europe, Africa and Australia. We are actively looking to expand our line of products to compliment our existing supplies of processed tomato, banana and mango. We want to offer the option to our existing buyers to supply additional types of tropical and Mediterranean purees and concentrates.