We are now six months old, at MadeinSpain.store, and we have found lights and shadows in the Spanish gastronomic scene. And many of our questions as to why we did not have a greater presence in international markets, we have been dissipating with examples that have surprised us, on the one hand, and on the other, have saddened us.
Spain in Different! It is a cliché, yes, but it has a lot of truth. In a very strange year, full of new situations and without historical protocols to know how to act, I started the development of MadeinSpain.store, together with Sveta Krolivetskaya, partner and co-founder of this exciting project that aims to elevate our Premium Spanish gastronomic products to the top in the international market. Lights and shadows we have been finding ourselves on this path, in this first phase that we are currently in, that of selecting the brands that should be part of our platform of gourmet products with the seal of Made in Spain. And we are different because we love to put sticks on our own wheels. It has been strange and at the same time pathetic, to find sectors where quality control is conspicuous by its absence. Very unclear labeling and no desire to enhance (real) quality above all else.
Extra Virgin Oil
One of the most terrible sectors. It has everything to succeed: the best product in the world, the highest production and a future to conquer. Starting with the advertising campaigns where Olive Oil is empowered (buzzword), just like the best of the best. But no differentiation towards the Extra Virgin, the one and only. The other one, sorry, is pure rubbish. It's funny when we can see names like Refined Olive Oil in supermarkets. Therefore, in order to be suitable for consumption, they must pass a series of processes, chemical and physical that make up the refined to eliminate its deficient characteristics. The problem is that in most of these processes the substances that provide the oil with many of its healthy properties are also eliminated.
And the good, the true jewel in the crown, the Extra Virgin, it is hardly known really as an essential product for our health. I have not yet found any private association (because public I already tell you that it does not exist) that gathers and protects the producers / brands of Spanish EVOO. What I have seen are initiatives that are international, or export, are attractive, but again fail in the most obvious: extolling, disseminating and protecting EXCLUSIVELY Spanish EVOO.
Is it so difficult to create an association that defends and projects the Spanish Premium EVOO?
Without a doubt, that is the most clarifying example that the sector is not united. Not even the different Protected Designations of Origin do joint actions internationally to promote Premium EVOO like that Liquid gold pure Spanish.
MadeinSpain.store: select the best
Knowing the international market and our potential, we want, as travel companions, companies that have the foreign market as a priority in their mind. Spain it has to push as a domestic market, but outside they will understand us much better. Because quality is transversal and if it is projected as it should be, With the truth in front, the future is ours.
With that premise of a disorderly sector and without homogeneous direction, we developed our plan to find producers that we will fall in love with as soon as we meet them. With the creation of very demanding requirements, the prelude to a more important project that we will inform you shortly, we were tracking throughout the Spanish geography, companies that possessed such specific characteristics.
Firstly, an extra quality product, superior, that the human effort behind to achieve that unsurpassed level is recognizable and that it reaffirms its gourmet level.
In second place, the packagingBecause, what is the use of an excellent product if it does not attract the eyes of its consumers? Well that, not at all. And in this aspect we have found authentic design pieces, which gave pleasure and an irrepressible desire to try what they had inside.
Third, the history of the company, the storytelling, why we have to fall in love with the product and the company that represents it.
And fourth, the people that make up the company. For us this part is very important, knowing the owners of the company is essential to work with us. Because we need to transmit to them the human values that make us committed to our cause: to help Spain to be in the place you deserve at the gastronomic level.
MadeinSpain brands
It is a sector with high growth for sure that we will find more travel companions, but for now, we share it with the following companies:
Catalonia
We have Ed'o from Tarragona (Ariadna and Herzan are its owners); new segments (Adria); More Monstseny (Rog), Clos Figueras (Anne Jósephine) and Set and Ros (Albert and Jordi).
Estremadura
nature It is the company that we have selected from this region (Fernando is its owner).
Andalusia
The community with the most production in the world. Seven thousand (Second); Prado farmhouse (Alonso); Oleum 1948 (Mary); Extra (Jose Manuel) and Canena Castle (Luis) the company with the most international presence in more than 50 countries.
All of them meet all the requirements to be MadeinSpain. It simply is The Best of Spain.
In 2021, where flows of people will remain low compared to 2019, we must take advantage of the fact that Europeans, our main market, will need our oil for their own consumption. And as the first producer we must assault the Italian leadership, for capacity and quality. Spanish producers of EVOO Premium, We are waiting for you to conquer the European market !!
AUTHOR: Israel Romero is the CEO of MadeinSpain.store and Romero Premium Networking. A lover of Spanish gastronomy, one of his wishes is to help place it at the top of the world pedestal. The lack of pedagogy and adequate dissemination means that we have to strive to communicate more and better. And he will do it until he gets it.
