Distributor Sourcing & Market Entry in Latin America

Q: Do you work in Spanish and German as well as English?

Throughout. Your technical documentation, the correspondence with the authority, and the commercial negotiation with the distributor all happen in their own language and register, with no translator in the room between you and the decision.

The problem

Two things go wrong, and both of them cost years rather than fees

Neither is a commercial question. Both are regulatory ones.

Problem one

You cannot tell a real distributor from a registered one

The register tells you who holds a registration. It does not tell you who imports, who has cold chain, or who has carried a European dossier through the authority before. Pick wrong and you lose two years, not a fee.

Problem two

The registration stalls after the deal is already signed

Most advice stops at the introduction. Then the queries start, and you discover your new partner has never handled a submission in this category. That delay shows up eighteen months later, with the exclusivity clock running.

Both are answerable before you commit anything. The evidence sits in the registers the authority already publishes. Reading it correctly is a regulatory skill, not a commercial one — and that is the whole of what we do.

Start here

The free Category Snapshot

Before anyone asks you for a budget, you should know whether the category is worth entering at all. So we will run the first read for free, from the live registers, and send it to you in writing.

No call is required to get it. If the answer is that your category is already crowded and the entry is not worth it, that is what the snapshot will say — and you will have saved yourself the exercise.

How many registrations already exist in your exact category and species, in your target market.
Which manufacturers already hold them, and where they are based.
How many distributors are actually registered to carry your product type — not how many exist.
How many of those have imported from Europe before.
A one-line honest read on whether the category is worth pursuing.

Request your snapshot

Four fields. We reply within one business day, in English, Spanish or German.

DGF

Founder & principal consultant

Hamburg, Germany

Veterinarian Ex-competent authority Industry RA Colombian EN / ES / DE

Who you actually work with

One practitioner, on your file from first call to approval

The person who reads the register for you is the person who assesses your dossier and sits in the call with the distributor. No account manager, no handover to a junior.

The founder trained as a veterinarian, worked in regulatory affairs inside a national competent authority, then in industry — and is Colombian. Market-entry advice here is usually sold by trade consultants who do not read dossiers, or regulatory firms who have never sat across from a Colombian distributor. This work needs both at once.

We also cover EU regulatory affairs and pharmacovigilance — see EU services.

Book a 20-min call

Before you enquire

What this is, and what it is not

We would rather lose an enquiry here than three months into an engagement.

This is for you if

You manufacture veterinary medicines, biologicals or feed additives in Europe, the UK or North America.
You are weighing Latin America and want the regulatory reality before the commercial pitch.
You already have a partner in the region and want them benchmarked against the register.
You want the reasoning in writing, so the decision is defensible inside your own company.
You want one accountable person across both the partner search and the dossier.

This is not

A brokerage. No distributor pays us, so no distributor gets recommended for paying us.
A guarantee of performance. We remove the candidates who demonstrably cannot; the relationship is still yours to build.
A contact list. Names without the regulatory read are the thing that gets manufacturers into trouble.
A large firm. It is a focused practice, deliberately, and it takes on a limited number of files at a time.
A quick answer for every market. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are built and current; anywhere else we tell you honestly what groundwork it needs first.

FAQ

Common questions from manufacturers

Do you take a commission from the distributor?

No. We are paid by you, the manufacturer, and only by you. A finder paid by the distributor has an incentive to place you with whoever pays best, not whoever sells best. Our recommendation is worth something precisely because nobody on the other side is paying us.

Can you guarantee the distributor will perform?

No, and be wary of anyone who does. What we can do is remove the candidates who demonstrably cannot — no import history, no registrations in your category, no EU experience, no infrastructure — and give you verified evidence on the ones who remain. The commercial relationship is still yours to build.

How long does registration take?

It depends on the market, the product type and how complete your dossier is at submission. Biologicals take longer than pharmaceuticals, and incomplete submissions are where most of the delay actually comes from — authority queries can add months. We give you a realistic timeline for your specific product and target country during the assessment, rather than a headline figure that assumes nothing goes wrong.

We already have a distributor there. Is this useful?

Often, yes. We can benchmark your current partner against the rest of the register: how deep their portfolio really is, which species they actually sell into, how many manufacturers they represent, whether your products are a priority for them or one line among two hundred, and what their registration track record looks like.

Which markets can you cover?

Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are built and current — 3,327 distributors from 53,189 active registrations, refreshed as each authority republishes. The same method applies to Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile and Argentina: work from the national register, score candidates on verifiable signals, then verify the rest by hand. Tell us the target market and we will be straight with you about how much groundwork it needs first.

What does it cost?

It depends on the product category, how many candidates need verifying, and whether you want the registration work as well. A 20-minute call is enough for us to scope it and send you a fixed written proposal, rather than open-ended hourly billing.

You are a small practice. Why should we trust you with a market entry?

A fair question, and we would rather answer it plainly than pad the page with logos. DGF is a focused practice, not a large consultancy, and the work rests on two things you can check before committing anything. The first is the method: our distributor map is derived from the authorities’ own registers, and the free Category Snapshot shows you exactly how that reasoning runs on your product before you have paid for anything. The second is the qualification: this is regulatory judgement made by someone who has sat on the authority’s side of the desk. Take the snapshot, see whether the reasoning holds, and decide from there.

What exactly is the free Category Snapshot, and what is the catch?

It is a short written read on your product category in your target market, run from the live registers: how many competing registrations exist, who already holds them, how many distributors are genuinely registered to carry your product type, and how many of those have imported from Europe before. There is no catch and no call required — it is how we show the method rather than describe it. If the honest answer is that the category is crowded and not worth entering, the snapshot will say so.

What do you need from us to get started?

For the snapshot, three things: the product category, the target species and the market you have in mind. For a full assessment we will also want your product’s composition and intended use, your existing registration documentation from your home market, and a sense of the commercial model you have in mind — exclusive distributor, multiple partners, or a local subsidiary. Nothing confidential is needed before an NDA if you would prefer one.

Do you work in Spanish and German as well as English?

Throughout, and it matters more than it sounds. Your technical documentation, the correspondence with the authority, and the commercial negotiation with the distributor all happen in their own language and register. There is no translator in the room adding a layer of interpretation between you and the decision.

The right distributor in Latin America — and the registration to back it

Two things go wrong, and both of them cost years rather than fees

You cannot tell a real distributor from a registered one

The registration stalls after the deal is already signed

Three things worth reading before you enquire

How a shortlist is actually built

Ten authorities, no shared rulebook

A report you can take to your board