Israel Romero / Friday, December 18, 2020 / Categories: Blog Spanish Gourmet Products: Our Fight for Quality — Extra Virgin Olive Oil Spanish Gourmet Products We have already reached six months of life at MadeinSpain.store, and we have encountered both highlights and shadows in the Spanish gastronomic landscape. Many of our questions about why we didn’t have more presence in international markets have been answered with examples that have surprised us on the one hand, and saddened us on the other. MadeinSpain.store: selects the best The MadeinSpain brands Spain is Different! It’s a cliché, yes, but it’s largely true. In a very strange year, full of new situations and without historical protocols to know how to act, I began developing MadeinSpain.store together with Sveta Krolivetskaya, partner and co-founder of this exciting project that aims to raise our Premium Spanish gastronomic products to the top of the international market. We have come across lights and shadows along this path, in this first phase we are currently in — the selection of the brands that should be part of our gourmet product platform carrying the made in Spain seal. And we are different because we love putting obstacles in our own way. It has been strange and, at times, pathetic to find sectors where quality control is conspicuously absent. Very unclear labeling and a total lack of will to highlight real quality above all else. One of the most awful sectors. It has everything needed to succeed: the best product in the world, the largest production, and a future to conquer. Starting with advertising campaigns that empower (a trendy word) Olive Oil, just like that, as the best of the best. But there is no differentiation toward Extra Virgin, the one and only. The rest, I’m sorry, is pure trash. It’s amusing when you can see names in supermarkets like “refined olive oil.” Therefore, to be fit for consumption they must undergo a series of chemical and physical processes that make up refining to eliminate their deficient characteristics. The problem is that in most of these processes the substances that give the oil many of its healthful properties are also removed. And the good one, the true crown jewel, Extra Virgin, is hardly known as an essential product for our health. I still haven’t found any private association (there’s certainly no public one) that brings together and protects producers/brands of Spanish EVOO. What I have seen are initiatives that are international in nature, or export-focused; they are attractive, but again they fail at the most obvious thing: praising, promoting and protecting EXCLUSIVELY Spanish EVOO. Is it really that hard to form an association that defends and promotes Spanish Premium EVOO? Without a doubt, this is the clearest example that the sector is not united. Not even the different Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs) take joint international action to promote Premium EVOO as that Liquid Gold pure Spanish. MadeinSpain.store: selects the best Aware of the international market and our potential, we want companies as travel companions that have the foreign market as a priority. Spain must push as an internal market, but abroad they will understand us much better. Because quality is transversal, and if it is projected as it should be, with the truth up front, the future is ours. With that premise of a disordered sector lacking a homogeneous direction, we developed our plan to find producers who would make us fall in love the moment we met them. By creating very demanding requirements, the prelude to a larger project that we will announce soon, we scoured the geography of Spain for companies that possessed those very specific characteristics. First, a top-quality product, superior, where the human effort behind achieving that unsurpassable level is recognizable and reaffirms its gourmet status. Second, packaging, because what’s the use of an excellent product if it doesn’t appeal to consumers visually? Nothing. In this aspect we’ve found authentic design pieces that were a pleasure to look at and created an irresistible desire to try what was inside. Third, the company’s story, the storytelling, why the product and the company that represents it should make us fall in love. And fourth, the people who make up the company. For us this part is very important; getting to know the company owners is essential to work with us. Because we need to convey the human values that make us committed to our cause: helping Spain occupy the place it deserves in the gastronomic world. The MadeinSpain brands It’s a high-growth sector and we will surely find more travel companions, but for now we share it with the following companies: Catalonia We count on Ed’o from Tarragona (Ariadna and Herzan are the owners); Nou Segons (Adrià); Mas Montseny (Roger); Clos Figueras (Anne Jósephine); and Set and Ros (Albert and Jordi). Extremadura Naturvie is the company we selected from this region (Fernando is the owner). Andalusia The region with the world’s largest production. Sietemil (Segundo); Cortijo del Prado (Alonso); 1948 Oleum (María); Exttra (Jose Manuel); and Castillo de Canena (Luis), the company with the greatest international presence in more than 50 countries. All of them meet all the requirements to be MadeinSpain. Simply put, it’s The Best of Spain. In a 2021 where people flows 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 top producer we must seize the leadership from Italy, both in capacity and quality. Spanish Premium EVOO producers, we’re waiting for you to conquer the European market! The Spanish gourmet product: revered at home (by some) … but what about abroad? Top-quality Galician products Print 5 Rate this article: No rating Please login or register to post comments.