The Grupo Costa holding company will be located at stand H156 in Hall 6

Costa Food Group, Grupo Costa’s agri-food holding company, is to take part in the SIAL Paris 2022 international trade fair (Paris, 15-19 October), to exhibit the main new products from each of its brands. Among these products, are the wide variety of Iberico products from Costa Food and the new range of snacks in a “tub” format, comprising specialities such as serrano ham, fuet or longaniza sausage. Costa Food will be located at stand H156 in Hall 6. Costa Food Meat’s international presence will also be enhanced by making a wide range of products available to the public, which are already sold in more than 56 countries. In addition, it is worth highlighting Costa Food’s incursion into the beer sector with OliBa Green Beer, also participating with this original beer made from olives from the Pyrenees. During the fair, this beer, known as “The Empeltre One”, will be awarded the Sial Innovation 2022 prize in the alcoholic beverage category.

In terms of meat, out of all the Iberico products that will be exhibited at SIAL, the ham, the acorn-fed shoulder and the sliced Iberico grain-fed hams, along with other traditional charcuterie products, such as the fuet from Casademont and its variety of Cabrales cheese, will be among the most important.

With regard to snacks, the meat group is also promoting the “Rulitos” range from Juan Luna (rolls of chorizo and gouda cheese, spicy chorizo with hot chili cheddar for the more daring, or Serrano ham with Gouda). Also, the Roler brand, which specialises in fresh products, will highlight its flagship product: beef carpaccio in a ‘ready to eat’ format. In addition, the Horeca catering channel will also be exhibiting different formats of meat and cheeses (sliced, chopped, diced and wedges), weighing 500g or more.

Costa Food: a group with growing international involvement

In recent years, Costa Food Group has become a lead player within the Spanish and international meat sectors thanks to the full integration of its production chain for chicken, turkey and pork, which has placed it among the top 4 Spanish meat sector operators and the top 3 European pork sector operators.

The group’s products are exported to over 100 countries and, as explained by its CEO, Jorge Costa, “Our international involvement is growing. We have placed our emphasis on continuous innovation to adapt to the consumer and offer cutting-edge products without sacrificing our quality and safety standards, and that allows us to obtain good results in all our markets. For this reason, our presence at SIAL Paris is of the utmost importance as a platform to announce our latest launches globally, since the fair showcases the latest food trends at an event which is attended by all the main brands”.

The project will create 50 jobs in Aragon

This initiative embodies the concept of circular economy and brings the pork and pharmaceutical sectors together for a ground-breaking project

 Glicopepton Biotech is a joint venture that represents the constitution of one of the first national-level platforms for the self-supply of heparins and high nutritional value products for the production of animal feed and fertilisers in Spain. The initiative stems from a collaboration between the Aragonese agri-food group Costa Food Group (from Grupo Costa), Laboratorios Farmacéuticos ROVI and the meat group Càrniques Celrà.

The project comprises the creation of a plant that will be located at the Industrial Logistics Platform of Fraga (Huesca) with a surface area of 25,000 m². Approximately 40 million euros will be jointly invested for its construction. It is estimated that the initiative will generate 30 direct and 20 indirect jobs and create a highly qualified team.

The initiative embodies the concept of circular economy and brings together the pork and pharmaceutical sectors. This project pursues, on the one hand, the creation of both economic and technological value by transforming pig mucosa into a biotechnological product of high added value, such as heparin, and, on the other hand, the development of fertilisers and new food supplements for animals.

Glicopepton Biotech combines ROVI’s experience as a leading company in the research of low molecular weight heparins (LMWH) with the positioning of Costa Food Group, the third largest European pork group, and the experience of Càrniques Celrà, a leading meat producer. LMWH is an anticoagulant drug used to prevent and treat venous thromboembolism. It is a biological product, and its raw material is obtained from the intestinal mucosa of pigs.

With Glicopepton Biotech, a platform for research and development will be created that will also seek to increase the value of the rest of the products generated in this process to be used as high nutritional value animal feed or fertilisers. The project will apply for the corresponding administrative and regulatory permits and authorisations.

A major project for Aragon

The presentation was attended by the president of the Government of Aragon, Javier Lambán, and the minister for Economy, Planning and Employment, Marta Gastón. In the words of the president, “this innovative project places Aragon in a position of leadership and contributes to the diversification of the Aragonese economy within sectors such as the agri-food and pharmaceutical industries, while strengthening the circular economy. I get the impression that it will be the origin of many other industrial developments. Aragon can be satisfied that it is hosting such an important project”.

For his part, Jorge Costa, CEO of Costa Food Group, highlighted the importance of this project for Aragon: “Our group is proud to be able to attract this prestigious biotechnological project to our region and increase the value of our autonomous community’s pork sector through a circular economy, with the support of the pharmaceutical sector. The creation of the Glicopepton Biotech plant in Fraga also allows us to draw on the talent in Aragon, an objective which is in line with our strategy to generate quality employment in rural areas.”

Juan López-Belmonte Encina, president and CEO of ROVI, pointed out “the strategic importance of a project of these characteristics for Spain, since it enables the country to be self-sufficient in obtaining raw material which is necessary for the production of an essential drug such as low molecular weight heparins. At ROVI we are very excited about this project, since, as a company specialising in these drugs, it will allow us to take another step forward in the vertical integration of our manufacturing of low molecular weight heparins (LMWH)”.

Xavier Roca Masmitjà, general director of Càrniques Celrà and Olot Meats explained: “Until now, the mucosa was exported to other countries to obtain heparin. With this project, we join forces with the Spanish pharmaceutical industry and the third largest European pork producer to manufacture heparin in our own country and thus strengthen our health resources which are so essential, as the recent COVID crisis has shown. We are proud to be able to obtain this drug with the maximum sanitary guarantees and with complete traceability, making use of all the by-products and bringing high added value to our industry”.

About Grupo Costa and Costa Food Group

Grupo Costa, based in Aragon, currently has the third largest livestock population in Europe under the name of Piensos Costa and is present in the agri-food, renewable energy, automotive, crop protection, hotel and real estate sectors. Within the agri-food sector, where the group also owns SOMMOS Winery and Oliba Green Beer, it operates in 107 countries through the Costa Food Group holding, the fourth largest meat group in Spain, which comprises the Costa Food Meat, Casademont, Ibéricos Costa, Villar, Aviserrano, Roler, La Alegría and Juan Luna brands. Thanks to all these brands, the entire production process of pork, chicken and turkey is fully supervised from the farm to the table, with the inherent premise of all Costa Food products: to be natural from the start.

Grupo Costa is currently present in eleven autonomous communities: Aragon, Catalonia, Navarre, Andalusia, Castile and León, Castilla-La Mancha, the Valencian Community, Extremadura, Basque Country, Murcia and La Rioja.  It generates 5,000 jobs and its turnover in 2021 amounted to 1,750 million euros.

Costa Food Group is also the first white pork producer to have been awarded the AENOR Animal Welfare certification and 80% of its 1,250 pig and poultry farms are located in rural areas.

About ROVI

ROVI is a specialist pan-European pharmaceutical company is and dedicated to research, development, licensed manufacturing and commercialisation of small molecules and biological specialities. The company, which is in a continuous process of international expansion, has subsidiaries in Portugal, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Poland, and owns a diverse portfolio of over 40 products on the market. Its leading product, Bemiparin, is already sold in 89 countries around the world. ROVI also began to market the biosimilar of enoxaparin in 2017. It was developed internally in Europe and is now available in 38 countries. ROVI continues to develop its ISM® Platform technology, a line of cutting-edge research in the field of prolonged drug release with proven advantages. For further information, please visit www.rovi.es

About Càrniques Celrà

Càrniques Celrà is a company which specialises in pork meat processing and is located in Celrà (Girona). It began its activity as a cutting room in October 2011, and was designed and built for export, with installations, workflows and personnel prepared to comply with the highest global standards of health, food hygiene and animal welfare. It currently exports 90% of its production to countries such as China, Japan, France, South Korea, the Philippines, Chile and Taiwan. In June 2012, it acquired a 70% stake in the (now) Olot Meats S.A. slaughterhouse, which has been fully renovated and its slaughter capacity increased to manage 18,000 pigs per day. In addition, the high investments made in cold rooms, state-of-the-art cooling tunnels, robotisation, solar panels and water purification guarantee a safe, modern, efficient and environmentally friendly production process to achieve meat of the highest quality.

The main challenge of HAI 4.0 is to obtain a reliable way to measure the quality of the relationships between animals and humans by using the new technologies through tools such as artificial vision and ‘deep learning’, since the behaviour of pigs in the presence of their carers is one of the main indicators of their level of welfare and significantly affects the quality of the meat produced.

The project is aligned with the objectives of Costa Food Group to guarantee the care and welfare of our animals, in the framework of which, in 2018, it became the first brand specialising in white pork meat production in Spain to obtain the AENOR Welfair Animal Welfare certification for all of their farms throughout the whole production process: from breeding and pork processing, to the presentation of the end products.

The initiative is supported by the Cluster of Innovative Business Groups and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism.

Grupo Costa is to take a step forward in its sustainability plan and install solar plants in all its production centres in Spain. This measure, the main objective of which is to increase energy efficiency and reduce the Group’s environmental impact, will be implemented from April in four phases to cover all 35 centres that Costa has in Spain, located in eleven autonomous communities. The entire process will take two years and will be developed by MNM Solar.

In total, the installed capacity will exceed 10,000 kW and its annual production will be equivalent to the self-consumption of 15,173,000 kWh per year. As a result, CO2 emissions into the atmosphere will be reduced by 9,120 tons, equivalent to the effect of planting 456,047 trees every year. Moreover, the measure also makes it possible for any surplus energy from these photovoltaic installations to be diverted to the national grid so that other consumers may make use of it and the production is not wasted. Most of the production centres are in rural areas.

Grupo Empresarial Costa has acquired Juan Luna, a leading company in the European market in sliced cold meats and cheese and meat snacks. The company’s majority shareholder until now was Nazca Capital. This brand is thus added to the Costa Food Group holding, the only national meat purveyor which currently supplies ‘Iberico’ and white pork, chicken, and turkey. As explained by Jorge Costa, CEO of the group, “The acquisition of Juan Luna allows us to strengthen our options in the pre-packaged food market, and also to extend our ranges. It will undoubtedly boost our growth, as it is a leading company in cutting, slicing and packaging. This incorporation is key to bringing continuity to our commitment to being closer to the end consumer”.

Álvaro Mariátegui, CEO of Nazca, explained that “Juan Luna is our twenty-third divestment, following a project in which we have opted for industrial reinforcement and the transformation of a family business into a leading Spanish company with independent, professional management. The choice of buyer of our investees is very important to us and we are convinced that Costa Food Group is the ideal group in which to integrate Juan Luna, for its prestige, growth strategy and cross-selling potential”.

The Juan Luna plant in Sollana (Valencia) produces pre-packaged, ready-to-eat meat and cheese products in different formats: sliced, cuts, diced, wedges, cheeseboards, presentation cases, etc. The company has 245 employees and its aggregate turnover in 2021 was 56.5 million euros. Grupo Costa’s aggregate turnover forecast for 2021 is 1700 million euros.

Sustainability and circular economy

Juan Luna was founded in1989 and is backed by over 30 years’ experience in the sector. It is fully aligned with the sustainability values of Costa Food Group, and one of its initiatives is to work towards the reduction of its carbon footprint by maintaining zero levels of CO₂ emissions. It also applies a circular economy model whereby it reuses its cardboard and plastic surpluses to create new packaging, thus promoting environmentally responsible practices.

About Grupo Empresarial Costa

Grupo Empresarial Costa, which is based in Aragon, currently has the third-largest livestock population in Europe under the name of Piensos Costa and is present in the agri-food, renewable energy, automotive, crop protection, hotel and real estate sectors. Within the agri-food sector it operates in 107 countries through the meat holding Costa Food Group, which in turn is composed of Piensos Costa, Costa Food Meat, Casademont, Industrias Cárnicas Villar, Ibéricos Costa, Embutidos La Nuncia, Grupo Aviserrano, Roler, La Alegría Riojana and now, Juan Luna.

Thanks to all of these brands, the entire production process of ‘Iberico’ and white pork, chicken and turkey is fully monitored from the farm to the table, with the inherent premise of all Costa Food products: to be natural from the start.

Grupo Costa is currently present in eleven autonomous communities: Aragon, Catalonia, Navarre, Andalusia, Castile and León, Castilla-La Mancha, the Valencian Community, Extremadura, the Basque Country, Murcia and La Rioja.

About Nazca

Nazca is a private equity fund management company which specialises in the Spanish middle market. It leads its market segment, both in volume of operations carried out, and in the returns obtained from its investments.

The conclusions of the HAI 4.0 project will become an important documentary source for conducting studies in various fields that continue to improve animal welfare in the pork sector

The initiative, which has been promoted by i+Porc, also boasts the participation of Ceva Animal Health, Infoporc, IRTA and EQTIC, from the Digital Cluster of Catalonia

Through its meat holding Costa Food Group, Grupo Costa is to participate in the HAI (Human Animal Interaction) 4.0 project, whose objective is to film the behaviour of pigs when they are with humans on the farm and establish an algorithm that evaluates their reaction and typifies it with artificial intelligence in order to measure the degree of animal welfare. This initiative belongs to a consortium of members of the Spanish cluster of Pork Livestock Producers (i+Porc), among which is the cluster itself, Ceva Animal Health, Grupo Costa, Infoporc and Institut De Recerca I Tecnologia Agroalimentaries (IRTA), along with EQTIC, from the Digital Cluster of Catalonia. The project is sponsored by the Cluster of Innovative Business Groups and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism.

The objective, developed under the philosophy “If you look after animals, you look after the health of humanity”, is to continue research into animal behaviour in order to continue improving their well-being, and therefore these non-invasive systems will be used increasingly to evaluate well-being through data based on human-animal interaction. The conclusions will enable the creation of new standards for assessing the well-being of pigs and will become an important data source for studies in various fields, such as predicting diseases resulting from animal stress.

In fact, one of the aims is for the data to add to current audits that certify compliance with animal welfare parameters (Welfare Quality®, Interporc Animal Welfare, ISO 34700, etc.), and award a “HAI friendly” or “Human-Animal Friendly Interaction” accreditation seal to the farms involved in this project.

Digitalisation – key in the pork industry

The pork sector has been promoting innovation and digitalisation from the farm onwards for several years to optimise sustainability in all areas, mainly in terms of animal welfare standards, and the HAI 4.0 project forms part of this trend. Animal welfare is achieved when the pigs are completely healthy and in harmony with their surroundings and is caused by a series of stimuli or agents in the environment in which they live, such as food, environmental conditions and different variables in the relationship with the people responsible for their care.

It is this last point that experts from the department of Animal well-being of the IRTA, experts in standard Welfare Quality®, want to study in greater depth in order to lay the foundations and scientific protocols to interpret the reactions to different variables, such as the speed of movement of staff, reactions to strangers, the time that has passed since the latest treatment, the colour of clothes, the type of light, background music, etc. These reactions will be recorded with cameras that the carers will wear on a helmet. Subsequently, these videos will be processed with a technique known as “artificial vision” to determine if the animals’ reactions are friendly, suspicious or protective. The analysis of the images will be carried out through the implementation of a Deep Learning algorithm that will detect if the animals approach or move away from the person when he or she makes a series of movements.

HAI 4.0 began development in summer 2021, with the aim of publishing its data in the second quarter of 2022.

Costa Food, first white pork meat producer in Spain to obtain the AENOR Welfair certification in Animal Welfare

The Grupo Costa farms that are taking part in the project belong to Piensos Costa, the company that spawned the Costa Food Group meat holding, which in 2018 became the first white pork meat producer in Spain to obtain the AENOR Welfair certification in Animal Welfare in all its farms throughout its entire production process: from the raising and transformation of the pig to the production of its meat products.

Therefore, this commitment to HAI 4.0 underlines animal care as one of the main bastions of the Costa Food Group, the third-largest livestock farmers in Europe, currently operating in 107 countries with the integration of its brands Piensos Costa, Ibéricos Costa, Costa Food Meat, Casademont, Industrias Cárnicas Villar, Embutidos La Nuncia, Aviserrano, Roler and La Alegría Riojana.

This new line, which adds to the existing ‘Crunchy Chicken’ burger line, includes pops (traditional and barbecue flavour), steaks, thighs, nuggets, sliced chicken and crispy chicken wings. All these products are pre-cooked, so it is only necessary to finish them in an oven or fryer. They are gluten and lactose free and come in formats for domestic consumption and for wholesalers and distributors.

The packaging of this new range incorporates new formats, such as buckets and tubs, and reduces plastic by 75% by using cardboard as the main material.

La Alegría Riojana exports more than 40% of its production to European and Latin American markets

La Alegría Riojana, which specialises in the production of high quality cold meats and traditional cured sausages, has recently been acquired by Grupo Costa with the aim of increasing its presence in the processed meats market and enhancing its portfolio with a niche of value such as traditional chorizo. The group’s CEO, Jorge Costa, explains that the company from La Rioja has joined the Costa Food Group holding, the only national meat producer to currently purvey pork, chicken and turkey, in order to strengthen its commitment to reach the end consumer, in both domestic and international markets: “La Alegría Riojana increases our current range of ‘Iberico’ and white pork products, with its wide assortment in the category of cold meats, loin pork and cured hams. This brand is very well positioned in the European and Latin American markets, and it is the perfect complement to the current Costa Food Group brands in the processed meats segment.”

La Alegría Riojana, with a turnover of 19 million euros in 2020, has a production plant in Camprovín (La Rioja), in the Sierra de Moncalvillo mountains, a privileged location for the natural drying process of the products thanks to the climate and its height of 673 metres above sea level, which confers a characteristic flavour to the brand’s cold meats. “La Alegría Riojana’s mission is fully aligned with the objective of Costa Food Group: to be natural from the start. Meeting high standards in quality, food safety and the effectiveness of our traceability process are commitments that unite us with regard to consumer welfare as well as job creation in rural areas and the preservation of the values of a family business,” adds Costa.

The current management team and the 47 employees of La Alegría Riojana will join the staff of Grupo Costa, which is now one of the biggest meat groups in Spain with over 4,700 people and an aggregate turnover of 1,500 million euros in 2020. In 2018 it became the first white pork producer in Spain to obtain the AENOR Welfair certification for Animal Welfare in all its 850+ farms for its entire production process: from the raising and transformation of pigs to the presentation of its meat products.

About Grupo Costa

Grupo Costa, based in Aragon, currently has the third largest livestock population in Europe under the name of Piensos Costa and is present in the agri-food, renewable energy, automotive, crop protection, hotel and real estate sectors. Within the agri-food sector, where it also has the Bodega Sommos wineries, it operates in 107 countries through the Costa Food Group meat holding, which is composed of Costa Food Meat, Casademont, Ibéricos Costa, Tan ricos, Villar, Aviserrano, Roler, and now, La Alegría Riojana. Thanks to all of these brands, the entire production process of pork, chicken and turkey, is fully supervised from the farm to the table, with the inherent premise of all Costa Food products: to be natural from the start.

Costa Group is currently present in eleven autonomous communities: Aragon, Catalonia, Navarre, Andalusia, Castile and León, Castilla-La Mancha, the Valencian Community, Extremadura, the Basque Country, Murcia and La Rioja

“Pork Calanda”, the Group’s first farm in the province of Teruel, has been developed under strict sustainability criteria, mainly to ensure animal welfare and a circular economy

This Monday, Grupo Empresarial Costa has opened its first farm in the province of Teruel. “Pork Calanda” is located in Samper de Calanda and its highly advanced facilities will provide work for 15 direct employees. The pig farm is the latest addition to the 850 that Grupo Costa already owns in Aragon, Navarre, Catalonia, Extremadura and Castile and Leon.

It represents an investment of 7 million euros, has a capacity of 3,300 sows with piglet transition up to 18 kilos and has been developed under strict sustainability criteria, mainly to ensure animal welfare. As Eduardo Costa, Production Director of Piensos Costa, explains, it has state-of-the-art technologies for food, health and water treatment processes: “It is one of the most advanced farms in Europe due to its digital feeding system to improve animal welfare. Its different spaces have been designed to prioritise maximum well-being for the sows, so that the mothers are free to move throughout the whole gestation period, in dynamic groups of 300 sows.

“On the other hand, it has a system based on the processes of a circular economy, where the by-products generated are controlled to provide added value to the fields close to the farm”, Costa explains.

The opening ceremony was attended by Manuel Rando, president of the Provincial Council of Teruel (DPT); Alfonso Pérez, mayor of Samper de Calanda; Jesús Lobera, director of the Aragonese Institute of Environmental Management (INAGA); and Eduardo Costa Casas and Eduardo Costa Cerezuela, CEO and Production director of Piensos Costa respectively.

Jesús Lobera (director of INAGA), Manuel Rando (president of the Provincial Council of Teruel), Alfonso Pérez (mayor of Samper de Calanda) and Eduardo Costa (Production director of Piensos Costa)

First white pork meat producer in Spain to obtain the AENOR Welfair certification in Animal Welfare

Piensos Costa belongs to Costa Food Group, the meat holding belonging to Grupo Empresarial Costa, which in 2018 became the first white pork meat producer in Spain to obtain the AENOR Welfair certification in Animal Welfare in all its farms throughout its entire production process: from the raising and transformation of the pig to the obtaining of its meat products. This Welfair certification for Animal Welfare confirms that the animals are raised in a suitable, comfortable environment, which is conducive to healthy development, and is also a guarantee for consumers.

Therefore, animal care is one of the main bastions of Costa Food Group, the third-largest livestock farmers in Europe, currently operating in 107 countries with the integration of its brands Piensos Costa, Ibéricos Costa, Costa Food Meat, Casademont, Industrias Cárnicas Villar, Embutidos La Nuncia, Aviserrano and Roler.

Its main objective is to obtain a product which is “natural from the origin“, a concept that is backed up by the Welfair certification on four different levels: food, accommodation, health status and treatment, all of which are present at these new facilities in Samper de Calanda.

At their factory located at the heart of the Extremadura countryside, in Burguillos del Cerro (Badajoz, Spain), they prepare their Iberico products in a privileged enclave that benefits greatly from the clean, fresh air of the Extremadura mountains for the duration of the curing process to achieve the bouquet and characteristic flavour of Villar Iberico ham.

Over 150,000 Iberico hams and shoulders are produced in Burguillos del Cerro, Badajoz, Spain in the categories of Cebo (grain fed), Cebo de Campo (natural feed based), Bellota (acorn fed) and Bellota with the Designation of Origin “Dehesa de Extremadura” seal. The Bellota pieces marked with the counter label of the Spanish Designation of Origin represent 10% of the total production controlled by the D.O.

When you discover Villar’s Iberico products you walk right into the heart of Extremadura country. We invite you to find out for yourself