Their majesties the King and Queen of Spain held a videoconference this morning with the chairman of Central Lechera Asturiana SAT and CAPSA FOOD, Bertino Velasco, and with its General Manager, José Armando Tellado, in which they addressed different aspects related to the sector as well as the company’s current situation and its adaptation and operation as an essential company during the COVID 19 crisis. They also shared aspects related to its future projections.

The meeting with Corporación Alimentaria Peñasanta, a company of cooperative livestock origin, the leading Spanish dairy producer, and with its General Manager, who also serves as Chairman of the National Federation of Dairy Industries —the sector’s Employers Association— completes the extensive framework of contacts with the Spanish primary sector, with a vision of the bovine livestock sector and the dairy sector. His Majesty the King visited Central Lechera Asturiana’s facilities in Granda (Siero) on 22 January 2018, on the occasion of the Cooperative’s 50th Anniversary.

Throughout the conversation, the Chairman of the company, Bertino Velasco, spoke to their majesties King Felipe and Queen Letizia about the importance of the work carried out by CAPSA FOOD for the dairy sector and for Spanish society. In this period, and fulfilling the dairy company’s purpose to provide a future for livestock farmers, CAPSA FOOD has guaranteed 100% of milk collection from its livestock partners and the jobs of all their workers, as well as the supply of its products for Spanish consumers.

José Armando Tellado, General Manager of CAPSA FOOD and Chairman of FENIL (National Federation of Dairy Industries), reviewed the general situation in the dairy sector and the impact the pandemic has had on it. Throughout the meeting, he also detailed the measures taken by the company to maintain the health and safety of its employees, as well as CAPSA FOOD’s future plans to fulfil its strategy, emphasising that the agri-food industry can be a lever on which to rebuild the economic relaunch in Spain.

The company’s plans to provide livestock partners a future by offering natural products and solutions that improve people’s health and quality in a sustainable environment, include facilitating environmental transformation by working with a network of certified livestock breeders known as “Sustainable Family Farmers”, in addition to continuing to develop circular economy projects, such as its participation in ENTOMO AGROINDUSTRIAL to become certified as ZERO WASTE this year.

Through the Central Lechera Asturiana Institute for Personalised Food (ICLANP), it will also promote —as a result of the collaboration between food (CAPSA FOOD) and science (Asturias Principality Institute of Oncological and Molecular Medicine, the Murcia Catholic University, the Extraordinary Chair from the Complutense University of Madrid and WeDOCTOR) —a health platform that offers personalised nutrition solutions from the analysis of intestinal microbiota, and participate in the diet of the future through its recently created CAPSA VIDA, a five-million-euro fund for taking part in start up with projects in the field of health, sustainability and personalisation. It will also continue in its commitment to developing the NMCLA Adumes line in the pharmacy channel, through its collaboration with Cantabria Labs.

CAPSA FOOD will continue to develop the export market, where it is present in more than 40 countries, representing 36.8% of packaged liquid milk that is exported from Spain to markets outside of the European Union.

Throughout the meeting, the company explained its solidarity actions to contribute to Spanish civil society during the pandemic, with product donations to the network of public hospitals in the Asturias Principality, Red Cross, Food Bank, Quirón Clinics, Meliá medicalised hotels, among others, in addition to its commitment to deliver more than one million litres of milk for free to the Spanish hospitality sector when it reopens.

CAPSA FOOD is the manufacturer and marketer of the Central Lechera Asturiana, LARSA, ATO, ASANA, “39YTU”, VEGA DE ORO and Innova Food Ingredients brands and a leading company in sales of dairy products and by-products nationwide. Central Lechera Asturiana is an Agrarian Transformation Company (ATC) that was founded as a livestock cooperative in 1969 and holds 81.53% of CAPSA FOOD’s shareholding, although it also has interests in other companies.

The company’s industrial network includes seven factories in five Regional Communities. The main plants are located in Granda (Asturias), Outeiro de Rei (Lugo), Vilagarcía de Arousa (Pontevedra), Zarzalejo (Madrid) and it has a shareholding in the Vidreres factory (Gerona).