We arrived to Burguillos del Cerroa small town in the Zafra region of Badajoz, one of the cradles of the Iberian pig in Spain, entering the outskirts of the town at the El Alcornocal farm, where the seed of the company is located Manor of Montaneraabsolute leader in the marketing of 100% acorn-fed Iberian ham in Extremadura.
There he receives us Tomasa Perez Corchowho acts as a hostess until Kike, the nickname of Francisco Asparagusgeneral manager and president of Señorío de Montanera arrives, continually saying “Kike will tell you”,
And Kike counts, and a lot, especially to narrate how in 30 years a company that came from nothingbringing together different farmers from the area, has turned the brand into a benchmark for quality Iberian pork within Extremadura and the reasons that led them to do so.
In his well-spun speech, he also talks about how difficult it is to export to the United States, how meticulous the Japanese are, how why the Iberian pig is not the cheap bicoca that some claim believe and, above all, how to put Extremadura in the place that, due to pigs, belongs.
The first step: selling off the Iberian pig
Francisco Espárrago is an agronomist engineerpassionate about the countryside and board games, but also a math madman who had a good career as a civil servant until the late 80s. However, family forces, or something similar.
Asparagus, the eldest of four brothers, took charge of El Alcornocal in 1989, an inherited family farm, dedicated to the production of cork and Iberian pork. He did it because of his age, but above all because of his studies in Agricultural Engineering, and that was where the accounts did not add up.
In 1990 they sold the pigs to an important company in Salamanca, in 1991 they sold them to another giant in the sector, this time from Jabugo, and in 1992 they realized they were losing money. “We depended on the price at which the industrialist liquidated and it varied a lot from one year to another, or you were left at the expense of their payments,” explains Espárrago.
so they decided turn the tortilla around in the heart of Badajoz where, although it may seem strange, the tradition of curing hams is not as deeply rooted as in Guijuelo, to give an example. “Here it is not as cold as in Salamanca and, above all, it is much hotter in summer. That is why the ham could not be cured well,” he explained before the pork industrialization that they carried out to hang their own hams.
They didn’t come alone, of course. They also make sausages such as morcón, lomo, chorizo, salchichón or one of the brand’s specialties, the folded spinewhich is a thicker cured loin, the product of ‘doubling’ the traditional loin caña, or its fresh meats, to the fullest during the montanera, the moment in which the pigs finish eating acorns in the field.
A cooperative revolution
Although there are now more than seventy members, In the beginning there were barely a dozen. “I brought together several farmers in 1992 and I proposed to them that we set up something where we were the ones who raised the pig and also the industrialists. Perhaps, out of 100 of us, 90 said no,” he indicates. The other ten went ahead and took the first steps of what is today the great quality Iberian brand within the DO Dehesa de Extremadura.
Now, however, Señorío de Montanera is the Locomotive of the Iberian pig 100% acorn-fed from Extremadurawith more than 70,000 hectares of pasture, close to 15,000 pigs and, by extension, potential to cure around 30,000 hams and their respective shoulders.
Although Señorío lives not only on ham and shoulder, which also has its own slaughterhouse in the municipality of Salvaleón, where employ more than 80 peopleof which there are also temporary workers and where he explains that “it is a well-paid business”.
In his words and within the industry, “a A good Iberian pork butcher can earn between 300 and 400 euros a day during the season”, as he speaks of the booming business of being a cutter. “I met a waiter in Mexico who we gave a two-day training as a cutter and who had a knack for it, and in a matter of two days he quadrupled the money he earned” , endorse.
“He Fundamental requirement to be a member is to have your own farm and pigs. Without that, you cannot be a member of Señorío de Montanera. In addition, then the pigs of each partner are checked after the montanera and they are analyzed to see if they give the necessary parameters, such as the amount of oleic acid,” he explains.
“If it does not happen, those pigs will not go with our brand and will sell them to other industrialists. Even so, our commitment to the partner is our guarantee because we paid almost between a euro and a euro and a half more per arroba (the measure in which Iberian pigs are weighed, which before slaughter exceed 11 arrobas) above the market”, he synthesizes.
Everybody wants to be Lordship
It is not easy to be Señorío de Montanera, which also has scrupulous control of how much pork a farm can afford and check the quality of the pig. “We have the pig within the pasture and we know how much surface it has and what production of acorns it can have. Based on that, each partner knows how many pigs they can really raise, or if it is a farm with more cork oak or more holm oak , which also influences,” he warns.
What is certain is that the 100% acorn-fed Iberian ham (the one that later has black seals on the legs and hams) has a ceiling. “The ceiling is set by the pasture, which is the guarantee that the pig eats acorns,” says Espárrago about the sector. “In Spain there are 600,000 Iberian pigs, but The reality is that only 60% of this total is 100% acorn-fed Iberian, but then there are four million crossbred pigs”, he also laments about a labeling, that of the Iberian Law, which conditions the quality producer.
“The one who makes crossbreed can say that it is Iberian, and I have to say that I am 100% Iberian, but how do you explain to the final consumer between one thing and another”, he reasons. Along with this, the awareness of being the most powerful company in the 100% Iberian sector in Extremadura, where its hams account for 40% of the total volume within the region.
They went from killing 500 pigs in 1992 to slaughtering 20,000 in 2021.
What also clashes, curiously, with other of the great denominations of origin of the Iberian pig in Spain, since It is not usual for big brands to rely on or rely on names like Guijuelo or Jabugo, to mention the two most representative, and where brands with a long history do without these quality seals.
From crisis to crisis and I shoot because it’s my turn
As in so many other quality Spanish products, being a prophet in his land does not go with the Iberian pig. Or not at the price set for export. “A Chinese can pay 1,200 euros for a ham, but it is that in London they pay up to 2,000 pounds for it“, quantifies Espáparago while showing El Alcornocal.
However, the Iberian pig is not a bicoca. “We kill pigs between 19 and 22 months old, where the upbringing until the montanera costs about 400 euros in total. If you also have to pay someone else’s montanera, add another 150 euros. And the reality is that then you sell the final product such as hams, shoulders, meats or sausages for about 1,000 or 1,200 euros in total“, exemplified.
“Us we are going to lose money with the pandemic pig because it is a pig that we bought dearly. Just like in the 2008 crisis we lost 80 euros for each ham that was sold “, he reasons about the economic cycles that also make the fixed assets of ham very high.
“We have more than 30 million euros hanging on hams and shoulders, and this is not like wine that can improve over the years. It can be maintained, but a crisis like this or a Russian memo coming [se refiere a Vladimir Putin y la guerra de Ucrania] it pisses us off,” he says honestly.
From the geeks of Japan to the Invincible Armada in the United Kingdom
Around the 35% of Señorío de Montanera’s business goes to export and, sums up Espárrago, “they generally pay well.” Figure at 1,200 euros that an importer pays for a ham in China, or 2,000 pounds (about 2,500 euros) from a British distributor, amounts that are very far from what an Iberian ham is worth in Spain, even for sale to the public.
“The English are the ones who buy best from us and those that give the best performance to the Iberian ham. Then the Japanese, although they are rare, are good buyers and are very thorough, but above all they buy fresh meat. In the case of China, what they want is ham and they highly value everything gourmet that comes from Europe”, he lists.
The Japanese pay up to 200 euros (we are talking about an importer) per kilo of Iberian prey, the piece that is most valued there and that in Spain does not exceed 40 euros per kilo. Or the 15 euros per kilo that he pays for intercostal meat, which makes “the rib disappear in Spain, because here it was paid at five euros per kilo.”
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In any case, he warns that “they take all of the fresh pork”, which barely means about five kilos of fresh meat from those cuts that each time sound more like prey, secreto, alligator or fillet. “The rest is hams and shoulders, the meat for the sausage, bacon, bacon and then another 25 kilos of the pig are entrails and offal,” he confirms, for what of those 180 euros that a pig can weigh, reality then is stubborn in terms of profitability.
Images | Manor of Montanera
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