Resist Imports – Interview for El Diario

Pymes are preparing for the situation that can result from market opening. A small company that produces French cheeses in Arroyo Cabral does not hesitate, and in that strategic reaction it makes use of one of its planned growth and innovation principles and will introduce in the market a product in homage to one of its founders and to the town in its 120º anniversary.

“To resist imports and outstand by quality”. Thus Ricardo Rossa brandishes, emphasizes and completes the main concept of his Pyme Quesos Especiales SRL.

The firm was founded 10 years ago by Rossa and Daniel Montes, “a chemical engineer that worked and trained (masters) in the world of cheese many years ago (now is retired)”.

The small company that produces cheeses is in Arroyo Cabral and tirelessly works in carrying out strategic dynamics. This is partly the nature of its projection as a company in itself.

“From the beginning we proposed ourselves to develop a cheese each year”, assured the interviewed. As regards this, he said that they have been doing it this way and that they have already three legal marks to commercialize, and besides, important marks and supermarket chains all over the country (and the world, as Walmart) have their products on the shelves. La Bohème, Azzurro and Le Bocage are their own.

But “besides the production, we demand the same quality. Our cheeses are immaculate” he asserted.

Anyway, they are nowadays focused on and waiting for authorizations to be ready. “We have already got SE.NA.SA. xi, and we are waiting for HACCP that warranties food highest quality and security, besides clients’ satisfaction”, he explained together with Carina, his couple and mate.

For Rossa, “the elaboration of several of these cheeses is overcrowding and they can become commodities but we have to continue making the difference in quality. If we also consider the situation that import opening can generate (that in some cases has considerably improved), there appears the possibility of exporting, and we have to be prepared.”

The plant where La Bohème cheeses –among others- are elaborated shows impeccable facilities.

 

“White from Cabral”

It is the firm’s 10th anniversary and a way to celebrate it will be the introduction of a cheese of our own as “a tribute to the manager (Daniel) and to Arroyo Cabral town in its 120 anniversary because here we have been received and treated very well from the very beginning, and we have paid accordingly.”

“It is a soft cheese with rind and mushroom, with a flavor additive that makes it different from the others produced till now. It could be said that, mature, it gets a soft Roquefort taste, and we have been dedicating ourselves to this innovation since six months” said Rossa, including this task in the line of adding an annual novelty.

On the other hand, in the middle of the strategic diversification, the firm is in full test to introduce to the market Camembert and Gorgonzola (both flavors) spreadable cheeses.

 

A start

From the beginning, Quesos Especiales SRL elaborated cheeses for third parties. At important supermarket chains there can be found at least three marks, sometimes together, and this makes Ricardo, Carina and Daniel, as well as the 34 full and part-time employees of the plant in Arroyo Cabral, feel very proud.

They started a decade ago, “with one and a half employee: one elaborated them and I took care of them because they have to be controlled, and I slept in the car.”, Rossa remembered.

 

A way

*”In 1980, Daniel (Montes) incorporated a Frenchman to the plant in La Laguna, Rolland Perrin, who in 2007 was judge and gave us the Gold Medal in the best Camembert and Brie Cheeses Competition in San Francisco Mercoláctea. In his salutation to Rossa, the specialist said that it was “the best cheese he had tasted in our country, and also better than many elaborated in France” related Rossa.

*”Being called from the Embassy of France to order your cheeses is to touch the sky with your hands”, said Rossa, after the experience he lived last July in the commemoration of the French Revolution.

*”We never forget that we started with a quality principle we want to back up. We did not begin until everything in the plant was ready”, he assured.

*”Afterwards we had a great first prize given by MasterWine magazine (the pleasure of wine)” the enterpriser said, because there competed cheeses taken directly from the shelves instead of being provided by the competitors.

* In 2006 the company started elaborating cheeses with 500 liters of milk a week, and the first cheese was a Brie. In December 2015, we came to process 11 thousand liters, and nowadays that number has fallen to 8 thousand, with a minimum of 7 thousand liters between May-June.

*A year ago they started testing the elaboration of goat milk cheeses (Camembert and Brie), buying raw material (500 liters a week) to the plant in Estancia Yucat, which produces almost 1000 liters a day of “a super cared for quality”, he graded.

 

Published in El Diario