In the heat of the ice age
Helena Montenegro Zurron
In some regions, such as Asturias, the high temperatures of the last days, which exceeded historical records, plunged half the country into an ice age. A company like Procubitos Europa, which accounts for 70% of its profits between June and September, confirms this. According to Francisco Delgado, the group’s chief financial officer, the most powerful ice production and sales company on the continent – his brand, Cubers – operates in a market “still to be exploited”. “When it’s warmer, people go to the beaches and terraces and we bill 20% more,” he says.
Asturias has a history of ice age. Cubers Premium opened its first factory in Gijón in 2011, but was launched on the European market under its current name before its integration with the Cadiz company Procubitos. The factory in the principality has a maximum production capacity of 80 tons per day. It is the company’s second largest and supplies ice to Cantabria, Galicia and Castilla y León. In the words of Francisco Delgado, after “two very bad years due to the epidemic,” the company is now heading to the opposite extreme: “We found more explosive demand than expected.”
Despite the expansion of Procubitos Europe, its focus is not lost on Asturias. We are still very interested in the region and some of the ownership is still Asturian.”
Seasonal pleasures family
Marta Otero Maya
The city of A Coruña changes its face depending on the season. In the summer, one of the city’s postcards marks the hustle and bustle of walkers seeking the best ice cream at La Marina establishments. While scarves and thick clothing take over the streets in winter, those who wear them want to warm up with a cone of freshly roasted chestnuts. These are two sides of the same coin in a transforming city. This currency is Gallego Gómez brothers Silvia and Gonzalo, responsible for La Ibi, one of the city’s most popular ice cream parlors in summer, and the chestnut cart, which symbolizes the beginning of autumn. On the real street. Sometimes they even dared to combine them. “One year we tried chestnut sorbet, another year with chestnut pie. The truth is, he kind of liked it,” Gonzalo admits. They owe their expertise in both flavors to their parents, Sergio and Pura, who started both businesses in the 1960s. The father started at the age of 13 as an employee of the first owners of the mobile ice cream stand. For over five years, kids have taken off the wheels and made it a local reference. But they are reluctant to abandon the nomadic life with the chestnut cart. “It is something very special for tourists who have never eaten before and for the people of Coruña who know we are always there,” they say.
La Ballena Alegre, Europe’s most sustainable campground
Santi Coll
La Ballena Alegre de Sant Pere Pescador (Girona) was recognized as the best sustainable and eco-friendly campground in Europe in 2022. The award was presented by the continent’s largest automobile association, ADAC. This five-star campsite, managed by the company Camping Car SL, is one of the criteria for tourist accommodation on the Mediterranean coast. In recent years, it has already begun to break the special summer season, extending its opening from April to October, before the pandemic broke out. “The season has changed a lot and extended into autumn, which allowed us to take advantage of this positive inertia in the previously very weak September and October,” explains Antoni Castellar, the campsite manager.
La Ballena Alegre is located on the beach in the heart of the Bay of Roses, one of the leading members of the Club, one of the most beautiful bays in the world. August remains the strong point in the company’s cash. Castellar points out that this season we have “reached 100 percent occupancy”, which means a maximum of around four thousand five hundred guests. “Our highest point should be between July 15 and August 31,” he adds. The company’s forecast is optimistic after overcoming the previous two years’ downturn. Its director states that 2020 “is very bad and 2021 helps us capture a kind of proximity user we didn’t have before”. On the customer podium comes German tourism, followed by Dutch tourism. In third place are customers of Spanish nationality, ninety-nine percent of whom are split between Catalans and Basques.
The outlook for this year is clear: “We expect to exceed 2019 turnover.” The organization’s distinctive sustainability path has earned them numerous awards each season and has enabled them to reduce more than 100 tonnes of CO2 per year. This year it was the location chosen by the Volkswagen group in Spain to present its electric van identity. buzz.
Alvalle gazpacho record: 38 million liters this year
lola garcia
If there is a product that resembles the vegetable garden of Europe and takes it to summer only with its name, it is gazpacho, a product that is not only consumed in Spain, but can be enjoyed even in America by crossing the borders of the country. States. The criminal that has become so popular is a company based in the Region of Murcia and showing off using products from the land and other neighboring provinces such as Alicante, Valencia, Almería, Córdoba and Jaén.
The Alvalle group was born 25 years ago with the aim of launching a new generation of foods made from fresh, top quality raw materials. And in this context, thanks to talent and innovation, he produced and marketed the first refrigerated liter gazpacho on the market in 1991, a real shock for this product, especially common in many homes in southern Spain.
Since then, a lot has happened in a company that plans to produce 38 million liters of gazpacho this season, 12% more gazpacho than the previous year, and will export 50% of its production, especially to France, the star of its country. A record six-fold increase in production since it became part of PepsiCo in 1999.
The biggest innovation this summer, as the company has announced, is the new series in the transparent PET bottle Season Selection with very special seasonal and local tomato varieties made with Pera and Kumato varieties and varieties for recipe summer. Rosa and Negro tomatoes in winter versions.
Alvalle uses about 40 million kilos of vegetables for its products, which start within a radius of 200 kilometers around its production facility located in the Murcian town of Alcantarilla, therefore “this way it ensures the maximum closeness and freshness of the ingredients”. They also explain that 98% of the vegetables they use are “picked by hand, one by one, in a traditional way, respecting their optimum ripening point”. In short, a gazpacho that is a work of art.
Jaraba juice to refresh
Jorge Heras Pastor
Water is summer’s best ally and one of Jaraba’s greatest treasures, a small town in Zaragoza known for its two hot springs (Sicilia and La Virgen). There is a privileged spring that Cobecsa company from the Ágora group (Ambar and Moritz beers) has enjoyed for more than half a century, and it peaks during these months as consumption of this refreshing product increases.
It has the best raw materials, the highest purity and mineral-rich water gushing at a temperature of 30 degrees in a catchment basin made at a depth of 100 meters. It is marketed through the brands Lunares and El Cañar de Jaraba. The first is a reference in the Aragon market and is sold all over Spain, where it is becoming increasingly well known for its qualities.
The bottler, which also produces Konga brand soft drinks, has 32 employees and this workforce reaches almost 40 people in the summer. Half of its annual production, which is about 30,000 million liters, is concentrated between June and September.
“Water is largely sold by temperature: when the need for hydrate increases, so do sales,” says Javier Sicilia, factory head and production manager of the Ágora group. However, he states that “heat waves contribute insignificantly to the throughput, the important thing being that the summer is always hot”.
75% of its production is for the hotel industry. “We have suffered from the closure of bars with the pandemic and now we are experiencing reactivity. The truth is that this year is going very well,” says the manager, who lives in Jaraba (280 inhabitants), where this industry is a catalyst for rural development.
The company’s turnover is around 10 million euros and it plans to face significant measures to get more of its private liquid treasury in the future.