Wednesday, May 7

Today we started our company visits with trips to Centauro Conservas and Gerdau Aza. Centauro produces canned tomato paste, tomato sauce, canned fruits and other canned products. We visited the factory where they produce tomato products and were given a tour by Mario Bozzolo, great grandson of the founder. After that tour we had a nice group lunch at a restaurant called Pura Carne (pure meat), though some people had fish or pasta. In the afternoon we went to Gerdau Aza, another company that has been in business for 100 years but has been owned by a Brazilian firm since 1992. They make various steel products from scrap. We had a great lecture but they were not able to arrange a plant visit (perhaps there were just too many of us). On the way back into Vina I commented on the huge amount of traffic considering that it was after 8 PM. One of the Chilean students told me the heavy traffic was because most of the bus drivers were on strike today. Between student strikes and bus driver strikes I think we might be in France rather than Chile.