Coren Group strengthens its commitment to the Galician countryside after purchasing 4,250,000 kg of chestnuts to feed Selecta pigs in 2023, meaning €6,600,000

The purchase agreement was ratified by Manuel Gómez-Franqueira, president of the cooperative, and Jesús Quintá, CEO of Alibós, the sector’s largest harvesting company in Galicia

After a decade, Coren has consolidated as one of the main revitalising companies in the sector by acquiring seasonal chestnuts to be pealed, boiled and frozen for pig feeding all year long

Apart from increasing the countryside’s wealth, this initiative has an important environmental impact with 137,000 chestnut trees planted in a surface of 1,800 hectares, which absorb 10,700 tons of CO2

For a decade, the Coren Group has been revitalising the chestnut sector in Galicia with its large feed purchasing volume for the Selecta pork range. In this vein, the Galician cooperative has just renewed the annual chestnut purchase agreement in the year 2023, ratified this week by Manuel Gómez-Franqueira Álvarez, president of the Coren Group, and Jesús Quintá, CEO of Alibós, the main chestnut harvesting and transforming company in Galicia. The meeting was also attended by Manuel Gómez-Franqueira Otero, Coren’s managing director; Natalio Rodríguez, Frigolouro’s director, and José Luis Rey, the Group’s purchasing manager.

The agreement for 2023 amounts to 4,250,000 kilograms of chestnuts, which represent an economic contribution of 6,600,000 euros. The cooperative purchases seasonal chestnuts every year, which then undergo a pealing, boiling and freezing process for preservation purposes to be used as food for pigs all year long.

In the last chestnut harvesting campaign, the harvest dwindled due to last year’s severe drought, which was unfavourable for chestnut growing. In any event, Coren’s large demand means stability in the sector, contributes to wealth generation and acts as an economic catalyst in the countryside –by complementing the income of the families in the area– and preserves chestnut tree groves preventing them from disappearing due to their general abandonment. This action is framed within Coren’s Social Responsibility Policy to promote initiatives aimed at fostering the progress of the rural areas where the company’s activity is developed. 

For a decade, Coren has been one of the most important chestnut purchasers (for feeding its Selecta pork breed) following a project launched in 2012 as one of the cooperative’s R&D initiatives aimed at recovering the traditional chestnut-based diet for its pigs in Galicia, thus granting a special flavour to meat. In fact, this range has consolidated as one of the cooperative’s most successful ranges, both in the fresh product and the cured product range, with its Selecta ham, “The Chestnut One”, as a reference.

To boost its Selecta range, the Group has demanded for years the adoption of measures to promote profitable chestnut tree plantations (actually, studies on the sector show that the profitability of a looked-after plantation with added-value varieties is similar to a hectare of vineyards).

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT

The purchase of chestnuts by Coren implies a noteworthy environmental impact, since the acquired volume equals the production of about 142,000 chestnut trees in 1,865 hectares of land, which absorb almost 11,100 tons of CO2 a year. This way, the cooperative endorses environmental protection, following the fundamental principles from its Social Responsibility Policy.

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