Harvest Market

The Harvest Market is a CSR initiative of Corporación Hijos de Rivera in order to boost the competitiveness of the rural environment through socioeconomic development.

The Harvest Market will be presented again at the Gourmets fair in 2019. Successful producers who contribute to Galician rural development. A way to get to know the products with guarantee of origin and quality of our rural Galician.

At Gourmets I discovered high quality products with which I prepared a very Galician pizza .

Products with a very beautiful history behind, from Pazo de Vilane eggs, Casa Grande de Xanceda yogurts, Cortes de Muar cheeses, Maeloc ciders, Daveiga cookies, Amorodo jams, Arqueixal yogurts, Bico de Xeado ice creams , Ponte da Boga wines, Olei oils and Naiciña chestnuts.

All of them are successful projects that have a history of overcoming and personal commitment to the rural of its protagonists.

The Harvest Market carries out different actions to disseminate and promote exemplary rural projects, such as the Parladoiros, which have already held their third edition, or the pop-up store, which has been very well received in its editions of A Coruña and Vigo.

As a most rewarding experience, I got to the bottom and asked all of them what is behind this initiative.

In the following video you can see first-hand the human and product quality that the Harvest Market summarizes.

I could not stay alone with all the questions I could ask at Gourmets.

I was so interested in this project and its participants that I have delved a little more to find out what is the spirit that adds and makes the Harvest Market so special.

Within this name families come together, ways of understanding the #modorural that makes these small businesses create a unique space and in a single direction.

We started with Horta de Teodoro , Xan Fraga has recovered a family idea and turned it into a lifestyle. The first question was about his grandfather’s project.

• What is “Horta de Teodoro” and what has it meant for your lifestyle?  What we want is to transfer what our grandparents did to our days. That means raising the animals in freedom and feeding them in a healthy way, in order to make a quality product. That is Horta Teodoro. It meant a change. A change of pace. A change from looking longer term with other values.
• Celtic Pig How do you raise and feed them?   We raise them slowly. They are pigs that grow at their natural rate. They live in freedom 365 days a year and 24 hours a day and eat according to the season, with grazing and cereal feed. In spring and summer they eat many farnelos, cristas, herba millá … different plants and fruits of trees, apples, acorns, blackberries, chestnuts, tubers … By living longer with animals there is another type of relationship with them. We give them a name, you end up knowing and differentiating them by their character.
• What is your favorite recipe with Celtic pork?   Cooked sausages with turnip tops and potatoes.

The Harvest Market gives us the power to spread our Project and bring it closer to the cities. That sometimes (many times) initiatives like ours are invisible and end up dying without being known.

Thanks to the Harvest Market we can reach places that would be impossible to reach with our means. Join a group along with other projects and not be alone in spreading the value of the Harvest.

Ponte da Boga is born from the heart of the Ribeira Sacra . One of the best-known wineries in Galicia and which is a benchmark in the Galician wine and wine world.

• Ponte da Boga, How was this winery born?  It was born from the enthusiasm of people in the area, who, after creating the DO Ribeira Sacra in 1996, decided to return to activity Ponte da Boga (1898), which had been closed since the early 1970s and thus revive a wine and winemaking project that for 70 years it had been a landmark in the Ribeira Sacra Orensana.
• What has made Ponte da Boga one of the most appreciated wines of the Ribeira Sacra?  With the arrival in 2006 Hijos de Rivera to Ponte da Boga, a new stage begins where the commitment to quality in all areas is accompanied by the appreciation of the singularities of Ribeira Sacra, it is committed to the recovery of traditional varieties on our farms and the relations of the winegrowers with the winery are strengthened, going from being mere suppliers to integrating into our production structure, where they assume a commitment to quality, which translates into a lasting relationship of trust and respect. All this with the aim that the Ponte da Boga wines become good representatives of the best wine and wine values ​​of Ribeira Sacra.
• Merenzao, they say she is the Cinderella of the Ribeira Sacra. What does this grape variety contribute to Galician wines? Well, the truth is that it contributes, singularity, distinction and class. It sounds a bit pedantic, but I think this variety reflects with its fragile and elegant character, the wine values ​​that make Ribeira Sacra special, very few wine regions in the world produce wines of this style.
• What wines await us next year? As fragrant and fresh wines await us, I would say that 2016 is a typical vintage of Ribeira Sacra.

The Harvest Market allows us to integrate into a corporate project that exalts the main values ​​of Ponte da Boga and surround ourselves with projects that further enhance our work where human capital and quality in production enrich the rural environment.

Germán García from Cortes de Muar comments that they are the second generation of artisans with more than 20 years of experience in the activity, located in Silleda (Pontevedra), an area with a great livestock tradition.

They make a limited production of artisan cheese, made with milk from grazing cows, without artificial supplements. Modern and attractive design but without losing the initial essence of the country.

• How was Cortes de Muar born? Twenty years ago, my parents had a livestock farm and with the aim of closing the cycle they also built a small cheese factory. Years passed and between two of his children we went to work outside and the crisis in the dairy sector appeared. My parents decided to sell the cows and continue only with the dairy. The famous crisis appeared and both my sister Rita and I considered what to do with the cheese factory.
• Sell ​​cheese locally or not? That was the question, we decided to bet on keeping it but generating greater added value so that the project was viable. We also felt that it was a responsibility to maintain the cultural heritage that had given so much to the family. 
• What type of cheese do you make? Who reigns in the Cortes de Muar?  It is Queixo del País, creamy and smooth until saying enough, one of those addictive native cheeses, coming from beautiful pastures where cows like Marela, Morena, Marqués and Mimosa reign supreme. Tremendous bugs that the locals say moo (moo) about their things when they are collected at dusk after a quiet day of grass in the green and fresh countryside.
• What does this type of cows contribute? What is achieved with this milk?  From the championship milk they offer, this cheese with the smell of butter and cream is obtained, tremendously pleasant, with a creamy and melting texture, with a slightly sweet and acidic touch at the same time.
• Do you also make milk creams? What are they called? In addition to the traditional family recipe, with which we elaborate the rich and creamy Mimosas, we also venture to incorporate other production and refining techniques inspired by international varieties, always providing our personal “savoir faire”.

María Victoria Cosme is one of the people behind Conservas Amorodo .

A company that was founded by two partners in 2004, herself and Yolanda Vilar.

• How did the idea of ​​opening a factory of ecological vegetable preserves arise?   Yolanda, my partner, and I were fond of picking mushrooms and wild berries, and to preserve them throughout the year we started making homemade preserves for our families and friends. After attending various courses in organic farming, and training in the development of these, the hobby became a vocation, and the vocation a project. We started to think about the idea of ​​setting up a canning company in early 2000. We were clear that the preference was to establish it in our region, as close as possible, and it so happened that in those years a industrial estate in the area, and after giving it many laps, doing many numbers, taking many risks and above all with great enthusiasm and little fear, we did so and continue here.
• Pear jam in wine, kiwis, peach … What do your jams have to be so delicious? What other products do you recommend? All the raw material with which we work is of quality, we understand that the transformation of organic products must be careful with the material from which it starts. If we produce organic preserves, we want to transform it so that this adjective can continue to be maintained. This for us implies not masking its flavor or aroma, treating it with great care, not cooking more than necessary, making a sustainable use of energy, generating the least amount of waste possible, in the case of jams adding the minimum amount of necessary sugar and of course the result is of quality and of course rich. In addition to jams we also have tomato-based products, such as “Pisto with zucchini”, “Fried tomato”, and “Crushed tomato”, which are a success, and are a must-have in the pantries of any home. Likewise, the legumes were a success, the “Chickpeas in brine and the” Stewed vegetable lentils “, they are a saving in time without diminishing the flavor of the stews (chup chup) of all life, and serve to make the most diverse preparations But we leave that to the taste and imagination of each one.
• With which new products will you surprise us? New flavors in process?   At amorodo, from time to time, we do a pooling to see how the catalog is and how we can improve it. In this sharing many ideas arise. Some of them, after studying how to adapt them to our way of working and the resources we have, go ahead and become a reality. This process is very gratifying, because it relives a bit the beginnings of the creation of the initial catalog of amorodo and renews illusions. For example, in the case of Pear jam in albariño, we start from the base of the traditional recipe of Pears in wine. It occurred to us to make it in jam, and with organic Albariño wine, because we thought it could pair very well, in addition to being one of the internationally known Galician wines, and from which we knew a producer, Natalia. After a few tests to adjust the recipe, we finally gave birth to jam, of which we are very proud and of which we already have many fans. We can not anticipate any surprises, because we have many ideas for new products, but some remain in that, and others prosper and are born as a novelty, so you will have to be patient and  wait for the muses to illuminate us and we have a new reference in our catalog.

The Harvest market has provided us with many things, including means to make ourselves known both in Galicia and in the rest of Spain, supported by major brands that are behind this wonderful project for the promotion of rural areas, because we are many small producers , small companies with quality products that we live in rural areas.

It is also a way to bring rural areas closer to cities, to connect in some way. It is a didactic and popularizing project of all the good that we have in our land, and above all beautiful and exciting.

Another member of the Harvest Market that I already knew is Pazo de Vilane .

A family project that arises from the vocation of recovering a heritage that has belonged to the same family since its inception, an 18th century pazo and its farms, and giving them back their raison d’être as a unit generating wealth and income for the rural environment where they locates; all this around the values ​​of sustainability, care for the environment, care and respect for animals, elaboration of artisan and quality products and in Galicia.

• Has your proposal always been to produce agri-food products? It is the basis of our project, since we decided to maintain the essence of what the pazo was and had been; an agricultural production unit whose income was to remain in the rural environment. Given that we are talking about a historical heritage, classified as such, and its recovery, our proposal is also to dynamize the Comarca de la Ulloa (Lugo) where we are. To do this, we promote early music concerts in the pazo, open house days. Also convene a community of people around our values ​​through talks on entrepreneurship and other initiatives through our social networks.
• You are known for your eggs produced with free-range chickens … How did this idea come about? How has this project evolved? The idea arises from realizing that there was a need in the market that was not covered, that there was an important market niche for the eggs of free-ranging chickens, those of the village houses that were only found in spring at the fairs of Galicia. We were pioneers since in 1996 in Spain it was inconceivable for the poultry industry to think about producing freely again. We have managed to give an artisanal production and freedom the controls and guarantees that the market needs. We have been growing, we started with 50 chickens and now we have around 100,000 in production.
• Can you be sustainable in a company like yours? Do you plan to develop other product lines?   Yes you can. The consumer responds perfectly to the values ​​that we defend, which are not to achieve the maximum benefit; but to respect animals, take care of the environment and reinvest what has been obtained in improvements and wages for workers.
  Quality eggs but … Pazo de Vilane has many more products. What can we find in your company? Pazo de Vilane is developing an organic fruit and vegetable production line, of which it already has a range of artisan jams with 80% fruit produced by us, raspberry, blueberry and tomato.

The Harvest Market gives us visibility and dissemination and belonging to a community of companies that share a love for the Galician rural environment and know that another life is possible.

Also contact with one of the leading companies in Galicia that also shares these values.

I hope you liked knowing a little more about who is behind the Harvest Market and thanking you for the opportunity to see part of the Galician #modorural first-hand.

It will surely be an experience that will be repeated soon. Attentive to your screens.