Cheeses that taste much more than cheese: the Navarran factory that adds organic production and social inclusion

This small Navarran cheese factory had everything to disappear: an artisanal activity, in a rural setting and whose owner is retiring. Luckily, he came to the Aspace Foundation to the rescue and accepted the challenge of creating a project that has managed to have everything to be one of the best cheese factories.

Because their cheeses, yogurts, milk and butter They also know integration, local employment, rural development and ecological production. We are talking about organic dairy from Aspace Biointegra, a Ecological and inclusive cheese factory in the Roncesvalles area. A project that receives European funds and that was born with two premises, to promote social inclusion in the rural environment and to create local and quality products.

They started out with just cheese, but have recently expanded their line of products to include butter, milk and yoghurts, all certified organic in the area. A production carried out People with disabilities near the factory, thus promoting their inclusion in the world of work.

This is how Martín Urtea, his technical manager, tells it: “The master cheesemaker was going to retire and we took it as a bet”, explains Urtea, who also points out that six of the nine factory workers They live in the surroundings of Roncesvalles.

This is the case of Daniel Villanueva and Ivanika Guango. Daniel has been working at the cheese factory for eleven years and lives just fifteen minutes away, as he tells the microphones of laSexta. Ivanika, for her part, assures that she likes this job very much and that it is “a very good opportunity”.

The new products that can be ecological

Like Biointegra’s dairy line, since the beginning of the year there are new products that can qualify for organic certification in the European Union. The European Parliament has opted for new legislation to generate greater consumer confidence in organic products. A new regulation that has just entered into force in January 2022 and which aims to reflect the evolution of this sector: a simpler certification system that seeks to reflect the evolution of this sector and prevent consumer fraud.

There is also new products that will be able to benefit from these new organic production standards:

These are the main changes introduced by the new regulations that just came into force:

• I know simplify production standards;
• The system is strengthened control throughout the entire supply chain;
• same rules for EU and non-EU producers
• Organic production standards are extended to More Products (for example, salt, cork, beeswax, mate, vine leaves and hearts of palm) and there will be other supplements (for example, for deer, rabbits and poultry);
• more certification easy for small farmers;
• focus more uniform to reduce the risk of accidental contamination by pesticides;
• The beds demarcated in greenhouses will gradually cease to be used. In other words, the crops will have to be in direct contact with the soil to have organic certification. Until now there were exceptions that did allow it.