Updated Saturday, October 7, 2023 – 02:05
More than 700,000 people dined last Christmas with their products. The captain who served at the wedding of the current kings catapulted him to stardom, but the factory fire a few months ago cut short his dream. Today, he is reborn from his ashes.
Alfonso Jimnez, president of Cascajares, poses with a captain. JUAN MIGUEL LOSTAU
Two dates have changed the history of Cascajares and its famous and tasty capons. The first dates back to May 22, 2004. After 29 meetings, the Royal Family decided that the main dish served to the 1,200 guests who attended the wedding of the then Princes of Asturias, Don Felipe VI and Doña Letizia, was the Capn roasted with thyme with dried fruits. The fame was such that purchase requests overflowed. The following Monday, more than 30 people came to the doors of the factory, early in the day, before it had yet opened its doors in Dueás (Palencia), asking for their ration. They also wanted to eat like princes. The success was such that they went from the 9,000 boxes they sold per year then to reaching a record turnover of 12.5 million euros in 2022 and more than 90,000 sold.
Nearly 700,000 people had dinner last Christmas with Cascajares products (capons, pulardas, suckling pigs and lambs). Everything was going smoothly for Alfonso Jimnez (50), founder and president of Cascajares (the youngest of 10 siblings and who did not like to study), along with his partner, Francisco Iglesiasafter much effort and sacrifice during the last 30 years.
However, overnight, everything collapsed. It is the second key date. At 3:11 a.m. last night 26 of Januaryas he himself remembers precisely, A call changed his life. Not just him. Also to its 74 workers. The factory was on fire. The fire, unstoppable, that had its origin in a overheated cable from the electrical panel of a refrigeration chamber, destroyed all his dreams. Everything turned into ash. “We lost everything.” Raw materials, machinery, stocks, warehouses, dispatches… “Only two great things were saved, the human team and theThe sign with the name of Cascajares, which miraculously survived enduring temperatures of 1,500 degrees as a symbol.”
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Cascajares, the capons of Felipe and Letizia’s wedding that sweep at Christmas (and in Canada)
Cascajares, the capons of Felipe and Letizia’s wedding that sweep at Christmas (and in Canada)
In reality, it was a tragedy and, from a personal point of view, “a rollercoaster of emotions.” Alfonso tells LOC that the first days (they also received a solidarity visit from King Felipe VI), when his wife and his daughters went to school every day, He would start “crying at home, alone, so they wouldn’t see me.” Since he did not have an office, he has teleworked during these eight months from home. “Many times I thought it was the end of everything.” But reaction. At 7:00 a.m. on the same day of the fire, he already organized the first meeting of the “crisis cabinet” at the general director’s house. With the social, business, institutional and support of the workers themselves (they took advantage of an ERTE, but no one left), after ten days they were already operating in another factory, rented, of small size, a workshop in La Cistrniga (Valladolid). ). The objective, to be able to survive: “Just when you think it’s the end of everything, it turns out to be the beginning of something new and better.”
The devastating fire devastates the factory.EM
From then on, they ruminated on the possibility of taking advantage of the misfortune to turn it into a great opportunity and build a new factory, suitable for a more ambitious project: “Which factories are you complaining about, ready to be reborn?” he asked a few days after the fire. “Pain it down on paper,” he told his senior officials. Within a few days he was already knocking on the doors of the banks to try to get a investment of 12 million euros in order to be capable of tripling its production: from one million kilos to three. “The insurance has still paid us less than half and we have gone into debt to the teeth, but there was no other way,” confesses Alfonso, who this week officially inaugurated the new facilities in Dueasraised in record time. The old sign, as a symbol, presides over the new built surfacewhich occupies 5,600 m2, almost double the previous one, within a 14,000 m2 complex.
The Cascajares cartel survived the fire.EM
The goal is to arrive in time to have more than 700,000 dinners ready for Christmas: “Now We have the most modern factory in Europe, which incorporates a latest generation fire fighting system to which is added a 600,000 liter water tank.” Also for shipments abroad, because the famous Cascajares capons are tasted even in Canada.
Alfonso, with Zamorano origins, was reflected in the most important terrifying forest fire of last year, that of the Sierra de la Culebra, which devastated more than 30,000 hectares and ended the lives of three people. For this reason, Cascajares requested the chef Jos Andrs, personal friend of the partnersto design a specific recipe for this solidarity challenge. The intention is to plant 30,000 trees in the area devastated by the fire, in the town of Villar de Ciervos. “Every pularda we sell will translate into a new tree planted.” Two fires, two misfortunes, two resurrections. Like a Christmas story, the story of Cascajares.
2023-10-07 01:37:10
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