Sofía Bets on Pork Education to Shift Bolivian Meat Habits
Sofía's 'Eat Forrest, Eat!' is a film campaign launched in Bolivia in January 2019, created by Athos to educate Bolivian consumers about pork cuts and their benefits, with the goal of overcoming negative perceptions and stimulating renewed trial across the country's food market.
Sofía is a poultry and meat brand with deep roots in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, having been founded as a family business in 1976 and formally named Sofía around 1980, according to Athos Com Bo. The brand's decision to address pork directly in 2019 reflects a strategic acknowledgement that, despite its presence in the food industry, consumer demand for pork remained suppressed by persistent misconceptions. Per adsoftheworld.com, the campaign's stated rationale centred on consumer beliefs that pork was fatty, heavy on the stomach, or difficult to prepare — barriers that had kept pork consumption in Bolivia notably low. According to clapboard.com, pork consumption in Bolivia stood at approximately 1.6 kg per person per month at the time of the campaign's launch, equivalent to roughly 19.2 kg per person annually.
Produced by agency Athos, based in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, and production company Cabruja Films, the campaign comprised a single film asset. Its objectives were dual in nature: first, to showcase the range of pork cuts available to Bolivian consumers; and second, to reframe pork as a practical, versatile, and appealing protein within everyday Bolivian food culture. The campaign's title — a playful riff on a famous line from the 1994 film Forrest Gump — signals a tone that is accessible and culturally literate, aiming to reduce the perceived distance between the consumer and a cut of meat they may have long avoided. Clapboard.com assigns the campaign a Clapboard Score of 55 out of 100, reflecting a modest but earnest effort to move the needle on one of Bolivia's more stubborn food industry challenges.
Bolivia's protein market was heavily skewed toward poultry at the time Sofía launched 'Eat Forrest, Eat!' in January 2019. According to clapboard.com, Bolivia's average chicken consumption reached approximately 43 kg per person per year in 2019, placing the country second in Latin America behind Peru, which recorded approximately 46.66 kg per person, as reported by clapboard.com. Against that backdrop, pork's approximate annual equivalent of 19.2 kg per person — derived from the 1.6 kg monthly figure cited by adsoftheworld.com — reveals a consumption gap that the campaign directly sought to address.
Sofía occupied a significant position in Bolivia's food industry. According to Es Slideshare, the brand held approximately one-third of Bolivia's national poultry market, though this figure is drawn from an undated secondary source and has not been independently verified for 2019. Its principal direct competitor in poultry was IMBA, according to es.slideshare.net, with additional rivals including Pío Rico, Algusto, and Avícola Don Tito operating across the Bolivian market. The competitive intensity in poultry made pork a strategically attractive frontier: rather than fighting for share within a crowded chicken category, Sofía could expand the overall protein conversation.
The campaign's strategic logic was rooted in consumer education rather than pure brand promotion. By demonstrating the variety and usability of pork cuts, Sofía positioned itself as a guide through unfamiliar culinary territory for many Bolivian households. This approach — demystifying pork as a food category before asserting brand preference — reflects a category-building strategy that acknowledges the limits of persuasion when foundational awareness and confidence are absent among consumers in the Bolivian market.
Director Cris Trebotic led the creative execution of 'Eat Forrest, Eat!' for Sofía, working through production company Cabruja Films in Bolivia, according to adsoftheworld.com. The film's title is its first creative gesture: the deliberate echo of the phrase 'Run, Forrest, run!' from the film Forrest Gump establishes an immediate tone of warm humour and cultural familiarity, lowering the register from instructional to inviting. This framing was a deliberate choice to make meat education feel like entertainment rather than a lecture.
The creative team at Athos, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, was assembled with clear role definition. Creative general director and copywriter Ferju Cuevas shaped the campaign's voice, while creative director Matías Galarza oversaw the broader visual and narrative direction, according to adsoftheworld.com. Art direction was handled by Maru Carvallo and Diana Ramírez, bringing a visual sensibility suited to food-category storytelling in the Bolivian market. The director of photography was Ytalo Cabruja, whose work under executive producer José Luis Cabruja of Cabruja Films provided the production infrastructure for the single-asset film campaign, as documented by adsoftheworld.com.
Account management was led by Siboney Montero, who connected the creative and client sides of a campaign that required both strategic discipline and tonal care. The creative challenge was considerable: presenting pork cuts in a way that felt neither clinical nor alienating to a Bolivian food consumer who may have actively avoided the protein for years. By anchoring the campaign's identity in a recognisable cultural reference and pairing it with a food-focused narrative, the Athos team constructed a campaign that prioritised approachability as its primary creative value within the food industry.
No verified performance data for 'Eat Forrest, Eat!' is publicly available. No sales uplift figures, reach statistics, brand tracking results, or media spend disclosures have been documented in relation to this campaign across Bolivian market records accessible at the time of writing. What can be assessed is the structural effectiveness of the campaign's approach against the objectives it set for itself in the food industry.
The campaign confronted a genuine and measurable consumer challenge. With pork consumption in Bolivia at approximately 1.6 kg per person per month according to clapboard.com, the gap between poultry and pork penetration in the Bolivian market was substantial. A single film asset, however well-crafted, faces inherent limitations in shifting category behaviour at scale. Consumer habits around protein selection are typically entrenched and change slowly, particularly when the barriers are rooted in long-held beliefs about health, digestibility, or culinary complexity rather than simple unfamiliarity.
The campaign's core structural asset is the clarity of its strategic brief. It did not attempt to reposition Sofía's brand identity wholesale; instead it targeted one specific friction point — consumer avoidance of pork — with a focused creative argument. That focus is a meaningful strength. Its most significant structural limitation, conversely, is the reliance on a single media asset without evidence of broader touchpoint integration across the Bolivian food and drink market. Clapboard.com archives the campaign with a Clapboard Score of 55 out of 100, a result consistent with a campaign that demonstrates sound strategic intent and credible creative craft but stops short of the executional scale or documented impact that would place it among the more influential food industry campaigns to emerge from Bolivia in this period.
'Eat Forrest, Eat!' is a Bolivian food industry film campaign created by Sofía and agency Athos in January 2019. It aimed to educate Bolivian consumers about available pork cuts, counter negative perceptions of pork as fatty or difficult to prepare, and encourage renewed trial of pork across the country, according to adsoftheworld.com.
Pork consumption in Bolivia was approximately 1.6 kg per person per month at the time of the campaign, according to clapboard.com. Against Bolivia's high chicken consumption of roughly 43 kg per person per year, also per clapboard.com, Sofía identified pork as an underdeveloped category with room to grow through targeted meat education and consumer engagement.
Cris Trebotic directed the film, according to adsoftheworld.com, working with production company Cabruja Films in Bolivia. The creative team at Athos, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, included creative general director Ferju Cuevas, creative director Matías Galarza, and art directors Maru Carvallo and Diana Ramírez, as documented by adsoftheworld.com.
Athos, a creative agency based in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, created the campaign, according to adsoftheworld.com. Athos had an established relationship with Sofía, having produced the brand's 2016 Christmas campaign 'Navidad para Todos,' which also used film as its primary medium, as documented by athos.com.bo.
Clapboard.com assigns 'Eat Forrest, Eat!' a Clapboard Score of 55 out of 100. The score reflects a campaign with clear strategic intent and credible food industry craft, but one limited by its single-asset format and the absence of publicly verifiable performance data from the Bolivian market to confirm measurable consumer impact.
Sofía's principal direct poultry competitor in Bolivia was IMBA, according to es.slideshare.net, with additional rivals including Pío Rico, Algusto, and Avícola Don Tito also active in the Bolivian market. Sofía held approximately one-third of Bolivia's national poultry market, per es.slideshare.net, making it a dominant but not unchallenged player in the food industry.
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