Samper de Calanda hosts this state-of-the-art facility, with a capacity for 3,300 sows, in which 7 million euros have been invested to create 15 direct jobs
“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.