Short marketing channels

Our company started in the 2011-2012 season as a direct marketing channel for our own oranges, avoiding intermediaries. Nowadays, we also sell the harvests of other farmers in our region. With this more direct form of marketing, known as a short marketing channel, we achieve:

• Pay the farmer more for their citrus, thus contributing to maintaining local agriculture and obtaining quality products.
• Create local employment opportunities.
• Enable the consumer to know, in a clearer way, who they are buying from and the real origin of the citrus they consume.

In a way, we provide our company's online store, marketing, and logistics services to the farmer.

Many times, we are asked for prices for large quantities of oranges for distribution. We are far from being able to offer "competitive" prices due to our type of marketing channel and our company's philosophy. Traditional large orange retailers operate very differently from us in every sense; it is, in essence, a different type of business that we cannot compete with in terms of price, although we can surpass them in every other way.

On other pages of our website, we have already talked about fair trade and the economy of the common good. I don't like to brag about something that should be the norm, nor do I want to set myself as an example of anything, as I am aware that there are still areas for improvement. But for us, making this business model known is an important resource to have a viable company.

We do things our way out of conscience, but the customer must also be aware that they are buying oranges and mandarines with added value: we offer fair prices to the farmer, fair wages to the workers, and we choose suppliers, within our means, who are also committed to fairness with their employees. It's not an easy task, and all of this implies that oranges can be found in the supermarket, both organic and conventional, cheaper than ours (we're not talking about taste or freshness here, as there is no comparison with ours), and our customers must know why. Moreover, it is a way for people to become aware of the problems facing agriculture in Spain and that the solution for viable and sustainable agriculture lies in paying farmers better for their products, as well as fair wages to farmworkers to prevent them from changing jobs. Even so, many times, our products are comparable in price to those in the supermarket or even cheaper.

Currently, organic agriculture in our region is in small but continuous expansion. In my opinion, this change should be associated with new marketing methods.

It is a reality that many agricultural products, such as some varieties of oranges and mandarines, olives, potatoes, etc., are being sold today in conventional marketing channels at the same price or even lower than 40 years ago! Lately, there has been talk of food sovereignty, one of whose implications is that the farmer sets the price of their products. Efforts are also being made by the national government to establish minimum prices at the source.

On our part, after all these years, we are happy to continue as a company and proud to continue working with the same principles as when we started, always striving to improve our service while doing our part for a better world. And as we like to share, we invite you to visit us if you are passing by Cullera (please notify us in advance), and we can show you our fields and our way of working.