Founded in 1890, with the name Correia da Silva factory, in honour of the State’s vice-governor at the time, it was originally built by the Englishman Carlos Sinden and his father-in-law Felipe Paes de Oliveira. This name, however, was never recognised, and the factory was always called ‘Catende’.

It originated in 1918, on the Genipapo plantation in Timbaúba, where Manoel Caetano Pereira de Queiroz had founded his factory, also calling it Genipapo.