Without giving up traditional values as a fundamental brand and following the path marked by grandfather Luis, Luis Gil's successors decided to adapt to modernity by transforming a butcher shop into a sausage and organic fresh meat factory in the Ocón Valley.
This is how Delia, Luis's granddaughter, tells it: “Our family has been dedicated to raising livestock, selling meat and making sausages for four generations. Currently, with the fourth generation of the family fully involved in the family business, we have launched an ambitious project that allows us to produce organic fresh sausages and meats from our own farm of animals raised in total freedom and in a completely ecological, in harmony with nature and man”.
The Gils were clear that they had to adapt to the new demands of the market, not only in Rioja, but also worldwide, and shape a new company that would incorporate all the technological elements that the sector required, but without giving up the concept of tradition and quality that had made grandfather's sausages famous.
Therefore, they decided that they should continue raising their own pigs, but to maintain quality they were very clear that this breeding could not be done in any way or anywhere. From that reflection was born the decision to opt for organic pigs: “It is not enough for the pigs to eat organic feed, we want them to live in a natural environment, outdoors, as they lived in ancient times, and to eat as naturally as possible. Doesn't the pig like acorns? Well then they have to live surrounded by oaks”says Luis Gil, son of the pioneer.
In La Rioja it was not an easy project, but given that it was a family business that did not require large areas, The Ocón Valley offered the perfect environment for our organic pigs: holm oak forests at an altitude of 700 meters, dense and shady and where fresh air circulates freely.. Added to this is the fact that these are lands where wild boars and roe deer have long since learned to coexist with shepherds and ranchers from other times.
Thus, Ocón became the most suitable environment for the pigs to be raised “happily”, thus beginning the journey of a unique project.
Adaptation of a traditional company to the current market
But an ecological project like that of the Gil family required transforming grandfather's old butcher shop to adapt to new legal and environmental requirements but, above all, to those of consumers, subjects of an increasingly demanding global market. This reality encouraged them to build a new factory next to the oak forest where their organic pigs were raised.
But how could a small family of butchers find a place in the demanding international market? The answer is no mystery: working. Working day after day, putting all the energy into moving production forward, maintaining and improving the quality of its products, meticulously organizing each task, studying and measuring each action, each change, each decision... but, above all, believing in a family project that is born from tradition and links to the rural world.
This consolidates a company that in 2016 already exports 80% of its production. It currently has an area of 100 hectares of scrubland covered by a leafy forest of holm oaks and oaks for raising its pigs, in different farms scattered throughout the valley, known as “The Encinar of Ocón”, within the La Rioja Biosphere Reserve.
Objectives of a new company
Its main objectives are the care and rigorous selection of raw materials., a lo que añaden una dieta basada en productos procedentes de la agricultura ecológica, cereal libre de productos fitosanitarios y semillas o brotes frescos del encinar.
Durante casi 1 año los cerdos ecológicos se crían solos en la finca, a su antojo, de forma natural. Disponen de alimento y agua a su alcance que favorecen el engorde lento del animal. La labor de los trabajadores consiste principalmente en vigilar su evolución y en el empleo de métodos de prevención que evitan el desarrollo de enfermedades o trastornos alimenticios.
Y así sigue la familia Gil, criando cerdos, haciendo embutidos y vendiendo por todo el mundo un concepto de alimentación que encaja con los nuevos ideales de salud, y que contribuye a mantener la actividad económica en territorios donde otros ni siquiera se arrimarían.
De hecho, la industria ecológica en Ocón, ha dado forma a un modelo de desarrollo rural que el propio Ayuntamiento de Ocón defiende como ejemplo de cómo podemos unir modernidad y tradición, y contribuir al desarrollo rural, frente al abandono y la despoblación que cada vez golpean con más fuerza en este valle.
