Conchel Original Food is a company which fosters an easy and balanced way of eating. For this reason, they feel that they have the responsibility of creating new products to help our consumers in their daily diet, keeping the traditional way of making them, with their original taste over generations.
Eduardo Cano is the responsable for Exportation. Here he explains the work of ‘El Conchel’.
QUESTION: For people who don’t know you. What is El Conchel and what does it do?
ANSWER: ‘El Conchel is a meat company which produces products from pork. It was born from a family project in the 80’s. First, it was a small butcher’s ran by Caridad Gómez and Nicolás Cano, and their eldest son, Antonio Cano (current CEO of the company) and later, the rest of the siblings joined, so they decided to start with a small cold meat Factory whose main value was to keep the tradition when making them in order not to give up quality and the taste of handmade cold meat. Nowadays, 27 years later, the company has more than 70 workers and they have increased its range of products because of the new market demands. Our innovation has led us to remove allergens and gluten from all our products. We have added a range of boiled and smoked meat, such as shoulder of pork and bacon, a line of fifth range oriented to Horeca sector (barbecue chops or snacks, very important in international markets)’.
Q.: What countries is El Conchel in?
A.: ‘Despite the fact that being in foreign markets is a hard process, we are in several countries, mainly in Europe, such as Germany, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, Ukraine or Luxembourg; although we are having more authorisations in Asia and Latin America. Apart from that, we are having interesting opportunities in countries like Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru or Japan, or Hong Kong, where we have some clients’.
Q.: In your sector, improving constantly and innovating are important. Have you recently invested?
A.: ‘Innovation is part of our values and one of our main corporate philosophy. Removing allergens and gluten and the constant improvements in our products from potential clients’ suggestions are some signs of our change process and renovations. Moreover, we are working with products that are totally natural to differentiate from our competitors. Undoubtedly, our most notable future investment is the incorporation of a Research and Project person in charge that works with the Marketing Department (recently created). They are developing an innovation commitee to update our products, as well as providing new ideas and improving the requirements of a market as competitive as we are now’.
Q.: Why do you think your company is successful in being competitive in the market?
A.: ‘Firstly, we are always concerned about increasing the quality of our products. This allows us to adapt to the needs of our consumers. They are who have marked a significant change in the direction that is being developed in our company. The trend to a healthy and balanced diet, as well as a great amount of followers of Foodie with high protein value, a wide range of formats adapted to the necessities of the market and different clients and new flavours with high nutritional value, thanks to walnuts, ‘La Mancha’ cheese with certificate of origin or blueberries added to our fuet snacks. All these things, with our recent updatings of the logo and image and the implications in marketing and communication, are opening doors to markets where our products weren’t attractive enough. We consider them the future national and internationally. We could add the efforts made in our clients’ service, which is something that they take into account in our company’.
Q.: You are member of Albacete Association of Importers and Exporters ADIEX. How do you see the work done from the association?
A.: ‘We think that having ADIEX is positive, since they help us with the expansion of the companies in our area and abroad. It isn’t useful at an individual level for every company of the association, but also as a group of business owners of the same province, which help us with the internationalization of our activities and the economical development, as well as the recognition of our region, favouring the image of Albacete internationally’.
Q.: What aspects do you think should improve from ADIEX?
A.: ‘They should foster meetings among members to share experiences abroad. This could be useful to learn from mistakes and success, as well as encouraging who have just expanded and they don’t know how to develop far reaching projects, like the internationalization of a company, specially the SMEs ones. Courses and formation about how to face or organise international fairs, about the cultural difficulties we have when exporting our products, references of products, fórums, websites or other interesting materials acording to the sector. They can be some useful improvements for us’.
