Unica Group was established four years ago. In its day, the company designed a roadmap covering various aspects such as size, customers, products and markets, among others. "Today we can say that we have accomplished this roadmap more than reasonably well, and, in some areas, exceeded expectations," said Unica's manager Enrique de los Rios. He points out that the main challenge in the early days of the Second level cooperative was to consolidate it and that it has been achieved. In addition, the firm has grown regarding the members that make it up, currently Casur, Cabasc, Agrieco, Ferva , Cohorsan and El Grupo.
As exposed by De los Rios, the company has two fronts: an external one composed by customers, products and industry, and an internal one, i.e. the cooperatives and the workforce. Regarding the latter, the company has established itself and gone beyond by having ongoing projects to further increase its size. "We want to start this second phase." In this sense, the company is negotiating with other unions their size to work together as some kind of a "Third level cooperative", and continues working hard to attract more farmers.
The company is very satisfied in regard to its external front: "Because we have increased the percentage of direct sales to distribution, we have reached the number of customers we wanted to have and we have also included highly innovative products, such as exclusive varieties like the Angello pepper, the Pepo zucchini or exclusive products at the time they're being marketed such as strawberry."
Unica Group markets around 160 million kilos, and its turnover is around 155 and 160 million Euro. Projections for this campaign do not differ in kilos, in which case, as their manager said, despite the increase in hectares, cucumber production will drop by about 30% so in the end things will balance out. They expect a higher turnover, from 165 to 170 million Euro because, among other things, prices have improved, " it has been a good year for products like cucumber of which we have around 37 million kilos, this year a bit less, but prices will make up for the loss in kilos."
The company is positioning itself in international markets by working directly with supply chains, especially in Scandinavia, Germany, England, but generally across Europe. "Rather than working with countries we do it with international chains that distribute our products through different States. One of our goals was to work closer with these chains and we are getting there, we are already doing it with fifteen in Spain and abroad, plus, with them, volume increases every year. "Besides covering the European market, the company already commercializes its products in the United States, Canada and Russia.
Source: Elalmeria