dreams · Nov 20, 2017
Dream Chasers: The Best Melons from Brazil
Last updated: July 22, 2026
ITAUEIRA, a Brazilian company famous for its Melao REI melons from Ceara, uses Quire to coordinate work across roughly 1,400 employees. Different roles lean on Quire's filters to see just the slice of work that concerns them, so a very large operation stays organized without everyone drowning in everyone else's tasks.
Scale is a coordination problem before it is anything else. PMI found that organizations waste nearly 10% of every dollar on poor project performance, and the bigger the operation, the more a single shared system pays for itself.
José Luís Prado and his family see it as their mission to bring their well-established melons Melão REI from their hometown in Ceará, northern Brazil, to countries all over the globe.
Founded in 1983 by his father Carlos, José is the 2nd generation of this family-owned business ITAUEIRA. They grow all kinds of melons from yellow honeydew melons to green melons, watermelons as well as grapes, and ship them to countries including the United States, Chile, Dubai, Russia, Holland, Spain and Italy.
Commercializing their best melons from domestically to internationally is not easy.
Not only are the family and their 1,400 employees responsible for harvesting 4 farms, they also need to take care of operations, finance, legal, sales & marketing, etc.
For all of these that they need to do, they found a solution.
“It is much easier to assign people, track progress and review what we have done in Quire than doing all these in a spreadsheet.”
-- José Luís Prado
2nd generation of melon-growing company ITAUEIRA
Before ITAUEIRA turned down spreadsheet, they have used Quire for about a month. And now, it has been 6 months since they got the app to help them achieve their goal.
“What we love most about Quire is its powerful tree-like interface which is intuitive, simple and elegant,” said José.
For example, anyone can collapse, expand or filter the tree list of tasks at will in Quire. An employee can filter by priority to focus on a few critical tasks; A manager can filter by assignee to see who did what at what time; The CEO can review the performance of everyone and everything. No more chasing after the team, or figuring out where it is at!
“It is just much easier to do all these in Quire, much easier to track, and much easier to review what we have done,” José concluded. “With such, we can focus on what we have always wanted to do: take on the world with our best-grown melons.”
Brazil. Melons. And Quire.
We all know that fruit farming is a traditional business. But this Brazilian family-owned company ITAUEIRA embraced technology to skyrocket their goal. Now, José and his family and colleagues are able to produce better quality melons, and distribute them to the rest of the world more efficiently. How wonderful!
Related: Smart Folders in Quire: One View Across Every Project — teams juggling multiple farms and departments like ITAUEIRA can use Smart Folders to get one consolidated view across every project.
At ITAUEIRA's size, the risk is not a lack of effort; it is 1,400 people pulling in slightly different directions. Filters are what keep that from happening. A field supervisor, a logistics lead, and an export manager each open the same Quire workspace and see only the tasks that concern them, so nobody wades through everyone else's work to find their own. One system, many focused views, is how a company that grows melons on an industrial scale stays organized.
How does ITAUEIRA use Quire?
A 1,400-person melon grower, in one view.
More from our Dream Chasers series: Dream Chasers: Making the best off-road vehicles. and Dream Chasers: Building a dream school together in Austria.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ITAUEIRA and what does it grow?
ITAUEIRA is a family-owned Brazilian company founded in 1983, now run by 2nd-generation José Luís Prado. It grows melons, watermelons, and grapes under the Melão REI brand and ships worldwide.
How does ITAUEIRA use Quire?
With 1,400 employees across 4 farms plus operations, finance, and sales, the team uses Quire's tree-like task list to assign work and track progress instead of a spreadsheet.
How do different roles use Quire's filters at ITAUEIRA?
An employee filters by priority for critical tasks, a manager filters by assignee to see who did what, and the CEO reviews everyone's performance.
How long has ITAUEIRA used Quire?
They used Quire for about a month before dropping their spreadsheet, and had been on the app about 6 months by the time of this story.
