I like to share with all of you that the international market, for the
Spanish gourmet product it is still very embryonic. The gourmet shops we work with, and many we would like to work with too, have a very common pattern. That the product that can be considered gourmet, originating in Spain, is of average quality, and it is highly questionable to call them Gourmet.
We have many examples, but one of the clearest products is preserves. Especially those of fish and shellfish. I cannot understand how a more or less beautiful photo and packaging is enough to convince gourmet stores to have these products as "representatives of our best gastronomy". Certainly it makes us angry and impotent. Because, in addition, the prices, oh of course the price –
that great trauma for Spain, defending high prices when they should be–, are scandalously low, for what they should be for the category of those products. And then they do not understand how a mussel, theoretically of Galician origin, a 6/8 (number of units per can) can cost about €8 in stores, when we, having them directly from the producer, as
Canned Nosa, we have them at €11,95, and we know that we have them "cheap", because they could easily be at €15/17.
But also without any explanation of where they are extracted, where the rafts are (place in the sea where the mussels are grown wild), who the producers are, how their pickle sauce is made... etc. In short, everything that gives the "real value" to an exclusive product. And when we tell the stores if their mussels have the certificate
Galician Origin, and they do not have them, that should make them distrust their true origin.
This is just one example, we could continue with the word "ibérico" for hams, which encompass too many product ranges. He
100% Ibérico is only the black label, and point. And the rest, despite being good and some very good products, are not the summum as is the true "pata negra".
And neither is its price (note that here many take advantage of the word Iberian to put prices on true “black label” ham when they are not).