The new company, Santa Clara Participacoes Ltda, has sales of some 70,000 tonnes of coffee a year, which represents 10 percent of Brazil's fragmented coffee market.
"It gives us a greater national presence. The market is consolidating...we want to be the leader," Santa Clara's Pedro Lima, the new company's executive president, told Reuters by phone from Fortaleza in north-east Brazil.
Sara Lee Cafes do Brasil is the current No 1.
"Our strategy with this joint venture is to become Brazil's leading coffee company," Strauss-Elite's Pieter Polhuijs, president of the board of the new company, told Reuters by phone from Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais state.
Santa Clara, based in the north-eastern state of Ceara, is Brazil's No 2 coffee roaster with sales of some 60,000 tonnes of coffee in 2005.