Elio Silva: A Brazilian Entrepreneur

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The word for ‘entrepreneur’ translated from Brazilian Portuguese is: ‘empreendedor.’ And Elio Silva embodies that word.

Since he emigrated 36 years ago from Brazil, a country with a deep tradition for entrepreneurship, Silva has certainly made his mark on Martha’s Vineyard as an ambassador for what it takes to innovate new ideas and create new businesses.

But for those who know him well and who have done business with him over all the years, it is Silva’s hard work that stands out above all else and what accounts for so much of his success. He says he works as much as 80 hours a week, owns 12 businesses, manages some 90 employees, and is involved in countless philanthropic endeavors. Oh, and he says he wants to live to 150. This unbounded entrepreneurial spirit and relentless drive can be traced back to when he first came to the Island.

In 1988, Silva turned 18 and left his small village in Brazil to travel to Boston, thinking he would spend six months there before returning home. As fate would have it, while working a high-pressure job at the prestigious Locke-Ober restaurant in Boston, six colleagues from Brazil decided that they wanted to move to the Vineyard.

“They didn’t know how to get here,” Silva recalled. “I said, ‘I’ll get you guys there, don’t worry.’”

He pulled out some maps, got the group to the Island, and promptly helped them locate jobs and housing. After just two days, Silva called his boss to say he was quite sorry, but he wasn’t coming back . . . he had found his spiritual home and was here to stay.

“Thirty-six years ago, the Island was so much like where I grew up, which was very rural and very peaceful. I drove around here and fell in love,” said Silva.

Silva, likely one of the more successful entrepreneurs on the Island, has lasted and consistently thrived during the ups and downs of the economy.

In a delightful, far-ranging conversation, I learned that Silva, who is now 54 and married with a wife and daughter, is, like so many Brazilians living on the Vineyard, originally from the interior state of Minas Gerais. He hails from a small village called Cuieté Velho where he lived until the age of eight. His family eventually moved to Ipatinga, some 86 miles away.

“My family had a supermarket, and there were my three brothers, mother, father, and employees. There were too many chiefs and not enough Indians. So, there wasn’t a need for me because we were all entrepreneurs,” he said about his decision to try working abroad.

Indeed, his family is part of a cultural fabric in Brazil that seems to be relentlessly entrepreneurial, even if it is an energy that has at times been thwarted by Brazil’s thicketed government bureaucracy. The most recent edition of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, or GEM, indicated that at least 48 million Brazilians, out of a total population of 215 million, wanted to become entrepreneurs in the next three years. Considering the 42 million more Brazilians who have already formed a startup business or taken a step in that direction, Brazil is the second country with “ the most potential entrepreneurs” in the world, surpassed only by India, according to GEM. And as Silva illustrates many of those aspiring Brazilian entrepreneurs are finding their way to Martha’s Vineyard.

When he first arrived on the Island, Silva started a landscaping business and picked up many additional jobs. But his first truly entrepreneurial endeavor began in 1991 when he established the Tisbury Farm Market in Vineyard Haven. Within its 900 square feet, Silva and his five employees sold fruits, vegetables, meat, roasted coffee, and artisanal cheese.

Popular with year-rounders and summer visitors alike, the business flourished, and in 2007, Silva moved into a 2,000-square-foot store at 294 State Road, adding an extra 1,100 square feet for his commercial kitchen and bakery. Vineyard Grocer thrives today with a constant flow of customers coming in to buy health foods, canned goods, produce, prepared meals, homemade Brazilian specialties, vitamins and more. What started out as 12 full-time employees has grown to 38 year-round staff.

And the Vineyard Grocer has become the center of the Brazilian community where immigrants can find the foods they love from home, they can catch up with old friends, and hear about everything from soccer scores for favorite local teams to leads on a place to live or who might be hiring. It is also a place where the Brazilian community intersects with all kinds of Islanders who have fallen in love with the eclectic mix the store offers and the down-home feel of its narrow aisles and the warm aroma of home-baked cheese bread.

While Vineyard Grocer may be what Silva, or just “Elio,” as everyone knows him is known for, it is far from his only business.

In 1991, Silva also started North Star Distributors, which purveys produce, cheese, and olives. In 1997, he launched North Star Cell, an Edgartown shop that sells and services cell phones and digital devices. Three years ago, on the heels of the pandemic, he acquired Mosher Photo.

Just before the pandemic, Silva started Delicious MV Bakery and acquired Bobby B’s across from the Mansion House. Here, you will find enticing baked goods, pies, cakes, sweet treats, house-made ice cream, freshly roasted coffee, freshly-squeezed OJ, and shelves stacked with snacks and prepared foods.

In 2020, Silva ventured off Island, buying two houses and a 41,000-square-foot factory in Brockton, where he manufactures açaí bowls using berries from Brazil, as well as baking bread and croquettes for the Delicious MV Bakery, Vineyard Grocer, and other retail stores. “I was trying to get housing for my help here to manufacture everything, but it was getting pretty impossible. So, I bought the properties,” he said.

Silva’s latest endeavor began last year with a 74-acre farm in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts. “I thought I could do a good job serving the community,” Silva says of his motivation for the purchase. “Also, I wanted to grow my own food to make sure I know what I’m eating. There’s a particular way you need to grow your food to make sure you’re getting the most out of it.”

Originally limited to produce, Silva immediately added livestock. “I’m a seventh-generation farmer, so I could see making the farm and farmstand successful. And the easiest thing is to find employees who know how to farm.” In addition to Brazilian immigrants, the farmworkers are a local United Nations with Haitians, Cape Verdeans, Portuguese, and all kinds of Americans whose ancestors were immigrants long ago.

When speaking of the Brazilian community on the Vineyard, Silva said that it, too, is diverse. Although just about everyone came from a pocket of Brazil in the southeast , various sectors of the community have different interests. There are those for whom their Christian faith is at the center of their lives. Some who would say their passion for soccer is an almost religious devotion. Some stay insulated in the Brazilian community, and more and more are reaching out to be part of the wider Island community.

He explains, “We’re probably up to about 14 churches. Then there are people who like soccer and carnivals, and now there are the kids who are more integrated. I think we made a lot more progress than I expected. People are acquiring houses and intermarriage, and the kids are growing up with other kids in the community.”

Reflecting on the ebb and flow of the size of the Brazilian community, Silva recalls that it grew slowly. The MVTimes has been documenting the pipeline of immigration and it seems it began as a trickle in 1986 with the first Brazilian immigrant landing on the Island. The wave initially crested in about 2007. Silva explains that with the 2008 financial crisis and then the improvement of the Brazilian economy, many returned home in 2009 and 2010. But since then, there has been a continued and steady surge in the number of immigrants, which is now estimated to have climbed to 20 percent of the year-round population or approximately 4,000 people. The number of students in the public schools who speak Portuguese as a first language in the home is an even higher percentage with Brazilians projected to be more than one-third of the student population.

Silva notes significant changes he has observed in how Islanders relate to the Brazilian community: “I think there is a lot less prejudice toward the Brazilian community. So many people have their own challenges that it’s taken their attention away. Also, with COVID-19, many Brazilians were on the front lines. Somebody from New York started to be more disliked than the immigrants because they already lived here year-round.”

Speaking about the resilience among so many Brazilian workers, Silva believes that it comes from having grown up in challenging circumstances. “Instead of $400 a month, you are making $5,000 here. You would still be working 70 hours a week back home anyway. We say, ‘You don’t miss what you never had.’” He adds, “And you’re not going to do it forever. Most people do it for five years. Then they start to work less and enjoy life more. Eventually, they can buy a house and work only five days a week.”

Silva, unsurprisingly, finds work invigorating and wouldn’t have it any other way. “I always say, ‘I never worked a day in my life because I love what I do.’”

How does he keep going? He is assiduous about his health, and also shares, “I get up at 3:30 in the morning. I do my sauna and my meditation and exercises. I’m out by 4:30 or 5:00 am. Do I run too many businesses? Probably I don’t need to run as many. However, I will probably start another half a dozen in the next couple of years.”

Silva doesn’t see himself retiring but rather shifting. “I want to travel the world doing philanthropic work — to teach people how to fish instead of giving them a fish.” He concludes, “My goal is to be 150 years old. We have a saying in Brazil, ‘Tranquilo,’ meaning tranquil. I go, ‘Never! When I’m in the ground.’ I see myself being productive until the day I die. A lot of people see work as punishment. Work for me means pleasure. The main thing is that you are contributing. You are being useful. That’s what keeps me going.”