“We dedicate the biggest share of our financial resources and technology to food safety"

Enrique Clavel

Enrique Clavel, the Director of the company in Spain, can still remember, a long time ago, when he was labelled “ingenuous” for his insistence on supplying clients produce with maximum food safety levels and free from residues, even under the current legislation. “For several years now this has become the norm, but in Iberiana we have been checking produce for a long time and in fact this concern was there right from the first moment when the company was founded in Valencia”.

Clavel remarks that the issue of price is not the biggest challenge. “Our main focus has always been the same: to supply our associates with clean produce. For many years now, we have been familiar with and implemented food safety practices. Proof of this is that a few seasons ago when there was a problem with residues in pepper, we could continue exporting via Campo Sol because we had always carried out exhaustive tests from the field right up until reshipment. It was only when we had insufficient goods that we went to Israel.”

Clavel affirms that the sales volume of Iberiana has continued to grow in 2008 although he is aware that there is a very fierce price war going on in Europe. “Nonetheless, our real concern is not about the economic crisis. I see a bigger problem in the high production and packaging costs for produce in Spain. We are losing our competitive edge against other countries not so far away such as Greece, Morocco, Turkey, etc. and some supermarket chains could decide to go to them”.

Iberiana’s philosophy is to always use produce originating in Spain, “whenever we can guarantee its quality”. We can also source produce from other countries but only when there are gaps in Spanish production”, affirms Enrique Clavel.

As far as the development of sales of organic produce over the last three years is concerned, Iberiana’s Manager insists “it has been very positive but this was a conscious move, choosing companies that could best guarantee these kinds of products: Bionest, Frunet, Eurofresh, Flor de Doñana, etc.”

In addition to organic certification for its warehouses, the latest quality certification awarded to the company is QS (Qualitätssicherheit). Getting QS certification has been, considering the high demands certification has in itself, quite straight-forward because by complying with our own internal norms, we even surpasssed thosed demanded by QS.

In Iberiana, company policy is based on getting top quality in their products and this involves everyone intervening in the commercial chain, from the producer to the supermarket. “We are able to sustain very smooth relationships with our suppliers and our own logistic company by having regular meetings. You can only have a high level of quality if you manage to involve everyone concerned with the process.”

Clavel points out that logistics is a key element in maintaining this quality. “We are efficient because the reshipment of our goods is done in the same plant since we share the building with our logistic supplier Armesa”.

Iberiana’s facilities in Valencia are located on two sites: the original facilities are in Massamagrell where export is handled and the whole business managed. Other facilities are in Villanueva de Castellon dealing with the Spanish market and Euromadi associates (the EMD Group).

Iberiana Frucht also has an office in Italy, managed from Massamagrell, whose objective is to supply the German market and other European countries with all kind of varieties of Italian produce.