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The Valencian Ana Climent Ortiz has recovered a traditional variety of cocoa and sells it online and in 15 gourmet stores in the province, thanks to the grant received in the framework of the European project InnovAgroWoMed promoted by Jovesólides in Spain
Ana Climent Ortiz (La Granja de la Costera, Spain) has a degree in Journalism and specializes in Marketing with purpose. She has received complementary training linked to the agricultural sector at the Escola d'Agroecologia de l'Horta; she has the Comprehensive Training Course in Agroecology (CERAI) and the HACCP System and good hygiene practices.
The Ca Climent project was selected in Agro-lab, a program specialized in agri-food of the Col-lab accelerator (Las Naves and Ajuntament de València) in 2021 and won the second prize for the best project development.
Q. How and when did your business idea come up?
R. Ca Climent arrives during the confinement. A parenthesis that left me time for reflection, miles away from my parents and the products of their garden. The exact moment was during an aperitif with beer and peanuts bought in a supermarket. As I ate them, the taste was far from those grown and roasted by my father. I thought, are they out of date? When I read the packaging I discovered what I didn't know until then... the vast majority of peanuts we currently consume in Valencia are imported from China or the United States, even those sold labeled as 'Collaret', 'del terreno' or 'Valenciano'. How could such a product come from so far away?
Q. What is it that drove you to become an entrepreneur?
R. I wanted to change this paradigm. I chose peanuts as the first product because of their emergency status, the traditional Valencian varieties Collaret and Cacaua are in danger of extinction. Since the 1970s, peanuts have ceased to be cultivated in our lands due to the arrival of imported peanuts - with lower prices - which meant that local farmers had to abandon the crop.
I thought it was time to resume the generational relay of the Climent family, farmers who have preserved for four generations the native seed of these traditional varieties that now sprout again in the field. If I didn't do it now, it would be lost forever.
I had to dedicate a full year (2021) to the repopulation of our own seeds and in 2022 I was able to start with a larger extension of cultivation that would allow us to start marketing it.
Q. How has the Jovesólides grant helped you develop your entrepreneurial idea and overcome the initial problems?
R. The grant came at a key moment to be able to face the last items of an investment that initially was much lower than expected.
Having to open our own bakery, because we could not find anyone who could do the peanut processing for us, we found ourselves with some extra expenses that thanks to the grant we were able to face. Mainly, the adaptation and the works of the workshop space along with the technical report for the license of the innocuous activity and the final certificate of the facilities. As well as the pest control system in the space and part of the equipment for the roasting activity.
Q. Have you encountered any specific difficulties in the process because you are a woman?
R. Despite being a very masculinized sector, in my case I have not felt any specific difficulty because I am a woman. Perhaps it also influences that I have the support of my father, my tutor and mentor in the whole process of generational relay who has been the one who has introduced me to the practice of cultivation and I continue to learn from him today.
Vídeo Ana Climent. Proyecto Cacaus Climent (InnovAgroWoMed).
Q. Tell us about what you have achieved so far and your expectations for the future.
R. Cacaus Climent has managed to recover the authentic flavor of València's peanuts by resuming a crop that was on the verge of disappearing. And we have also done it by bringing innovation in the nuts sector, using a compostable packaging (paper and PLA). We are the only ones that bring together the entire production chain (we are producers, roasters and sellers of local peanuts) to guarantee the quality and freshness of the product.
Very interesting synergies are emerging with farmers interested in contributing to the cultivation of peanuts in order to expand the volume of each harvest and thus be able to have a greater supply of Climent peanuts grown and roasted by hand near us.
Q. What has the InnovAgroWoMed project meant to you?
R. Thanks to InnovAgroWoMed I have been able to execute the last development phase of the Ca Climent project prior to its launch. Our project was conceived to grow organically and slowly, without investors or external financing given its structure. This help has been crucial so that today we are already selling our first product, the Cacaus Climent, through online sales and in a selection of 15 gourmet food stores in the province of Valencia.
Q. After your experience, what advice would you give to other women entrepreneurs?
R. Ideas don't belong to anyone, they are in the air. We only appropriate them when we execute them. And there is no good idea if it is not executed... so I encourage all colleagues who are considering whether or not to undertake this path.
In the end it is a journey of learning, sometimes it can become very uphill but when you get to the end, when the project is born, it compensates all the effort and dedication.
Do not fail to ask other colleagues or projects that are already started in the sector, you will find people willing to help selflessly. This is the spirit that is also shared among women entrepreneurs.
Within the framework of the European project #InnovAgroWoMed, Jovesólides has worked for three years with partner organizations in Italy, Tunisia and Palestine in the development of a needs assessment, design and implementation of a training program in the four participating countries. Subsequently, different accompaniment, training, coaching and economic scholarships services have been developed to promote entrepreneurship and facilitate the labor insertion of women in the agri-food sector.
Thanks to this experience, 35 women at risk of social exclusion have been trained in Spain and to date, at least 54% of them are already working.
