Grupo Pistacyl plans to start the project for the construction of modern facilities in the town of Pozal de Gallinas in 2023, where the Pérez Heras family is from, the owners of this company from Valladolid dedicated to the production of pistachio, elaboration of “Desacato” wine from the D.O. Rueda and provision of agricultural services.
This was announced by the president of the group, Alfredo Pérez, during the last session of the cycle “From the field to the industry” held on February 13th at its production plant located in the business incubator of the Diputación de Valladolid in the town of El Carpio, and which was attended by the president of this institution, Conrado Íscar.
Organized by the Valladolid Provincial Council together with the Association of Entrepreneurs of the San Cristóbal Industrial Estate, the last of the meetings was dedicated to pistachio, whose pistachio cultivation continues to gain followers in Castile and Leon and consolidates itself as an alternative to traditional crops in certain regions, especially in the southwest.
The conference brought together a group of farmers and ranchers from the province of Valladolid who were able to see in person the activity and production process of Grupo Pistacyl and later participate in a discussion with the president of the company.
During the talk, Alfredo Pérez narrated his family’s long agricultural tradition, dedicated to the cultivation of beets, and explained how, in the face of the sugar WTO crisis, in 2008 they decided to diversify and start a new line of business by launching Pistacyl, a pioneer company in the cultivation of pistachios in Castile and Leon, and a first planting of 80 trees on half a hectare of land in Moraleja de las Panaderas (Valladolid).
He explained that, since then, and thanks to its firm commitment to innovation and sustainability in cultivation methods, Pistacyl has experienced constant growth and has positioned itself as the main pistachio producer in the Community, with more than 12,000 pistachio trees distributed over 53 hectares along several farms located in the Valladolid towns of Pozal de Gallinas, Moraleja de las Panaderas and Fresno el Viejo.
Pistacyl is also the first company to market pistachio in its natural state, without any type of roasting, salt or any other additive, thus preserving all its nutritional properties.
Since 2021, it has been selling its packaged and bulk pistachio at different points of sale on the national territory and in 2022 it began exporting, with the aim of selling 50 percent of its production in Europe.
In addition, this year it has begun to market pistachios from Castile and Leon with the European seal of organic production and also to produce natural pistachio paste, one more step in its commitment to innovation in the offer of its products.
Alfredo Pérez pointed out that Pistacyl’s objective is to continue expanding the cultivation area in the coming years, as well as the volume of pistachio processed, which this year has exceeded 27,000 kilos of dry pistachios, 50 percent more than the previous campaign.
After thanking the Valladolid Provincial Council and its business incubator for their support, he indicated that, given these growth forecasts, Grupo Pistacyl’s plans include the construction of modern storage warehouses and a processing plant in Pozal de Gallinas.
The purpose is to have extensive facilities that allow all the group’s activity to be concentrated there, which also includes the production of wine with the Rueda Denomination of Origin, which it markets under the Desacato brand, and the provision of agricultural viticulture services, cultivation of pistachio and forest through Agrícola Pistacyl.
For his part, the president of the Valladolid Provincial Council valued the work of Pistacyl to open up new opportunities through an alternative crop to traditional crops and highlighted “the support of the provincial institution for this project through SODEVA and the Polígono Industrial y del Vivero de El Carpio, which demonstrates that the work carried out by the Provincial Institution through the Society makes sense and is necessary work to guarantee that projects like this remain in our towns”.
Conrado Íscar took advantage of the visit to take stock of the 8 meetings ‘From the field to the industry’, a balance that he described as “very positive, so much so that it has exceeded the initial objectives”.
In this sense, he recalled that the purpose of these meetings has been to “promote dialogue between the different links in the value chain of the agri-food sector, facilitate dialogue between farmers and ranchers with different processing industries in the province, convinced that producers and industry have to go hand in hand.
But, in addition to fulfilling this first objective, the meetings have allowed the Provincial Council to “gather first-hand information on the needs and concerns of the different professional sectors, which will allow us to help as much as possible so that the sector, essential to the rural development of our province, can continue to generate employment, maintain the economy and settle the population in rural areas”.
Finally, Conrado Íscar thanked the Association of Entrepreneurs of the San Cristóbal Industrial Estate for their collaboration in carrying out this cycle of meetings, as well as the availability of the companies that have participated in them.
“Without the complicity of Huercasa, Deovino, Fertifluid Fertilizantes, ACOR, Patatas Meléndez, Bodega Diez Siglos, Entrepinares and Pistacyl, it would not have been possible to carry out these meetings, which have also served us to corroborate the great power of the agricultural and agri-food industry in the province.”, he concluded.