THE STORY BEHIND EL TOSSAL DE LES GARRIGUES

Jette Rützou and Fernando Bofill

Jette Rützou was born in Denmark but her heart has beat ever passionately for this country for many years now. She lives in Esplugues de Llobregat, in a first-floor apartment with a beautiful terrace full of ornate flowers. She lives there together with her three sons and husband, Fernando Bofill – a film Producer born and bred in Barcelona.

A few years ago, they decided to buy a small piece of land in the municipality of Albages in Les Garrigues-LLeida– The property was home to a small abandoned stone house and had 4 hectares of agricultural land belonging to it.

The first thing they set about doing was renovating the house so that they would have a nice place to spend the weekends with their children in and amongst the beautiful natural landscapes and away from the bustling city life.

During the first year they got to work making a small allotment- setting this up however was a lot harder than they had previously imagined it would be. These first experiences were beneficial nonetheless as it acted as an immersive lesson in respecting the lands and those who work them. At first the locals were somewhat wary and looked on with curiosity- what is it these city folks were trying to achieve here? Slowly but surely though they gained the locals trust and started to make friends in the area.

Amongst others they made friends with Antonio Moreno, an inquisitive farmer with a lot of energy and interesting ideas. He proposed the idea of growing saffron– a crop which for years had been historically linked to the area but over the last decades forgotten.

In 2012 they began with the laborious task of reintroducing this crop to the Les Garrigues area. Jette and her husband Fernando together with Antonio and his family: Dolors, Gemma, Xavier and Enric founded the very first company able to produce, package and distribute Saffron in Catalunya. Jette coordinates the project; splitting her time evenly between making sure things are working on the property whilst also pushing forward the project from a business perspective.

Fernando Bofill and Antonio Moreno

In 2013 they obtained their first Saffron harvest with a guarantee of Designation of origen, cultivated and packaged in Albages. After this first step, the second step was to commercialize the business. For this second important step they reached out a man with great experience in this sector, who was able to help setting up an achievable and successful business plan and thus convert this dream into a reality. The entire team at Tossal de les Garrigues have invested both time and money and a lot of joy into this project and their reward so far has been that all the harvests since 2012 have been successfully sold.

They can now happily say that they have completed their objective: to add Saffron to one of the many top-quality products such as Olive oil, Olives and Almonds which the region of Les Garrigues produces.

As Jette looks on from her plot of land surrounded by almond and olive trees she considers exporting her product “Why not? If we’ve made it this far then anything is possible!”

You can find SAFRA El TOSSAL DE LES GARRIGUES and the organic option SAFRA EL TOSSAL DE LES GARRIGUES BIO in many Supermarket chains, greengrocers, delicatessens and Gourmet shops.

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