“Our exports are up 10% this year, but our revenue has not grown in the same proportion,” declared Sergio Samper, CEO of the Jorge Group, during his talk at the first session of the 12th ESADE-Deloitte “Challenges and Opportunities of Family Businesses” Lecture Series, held on ESADE’s Madrid campus. Mr. Samper pointed to his company as an example of the new challenges that Spanish meat producers are facing in the international market. “Some countries have adopted much more protectionist policies. To get in, you have to engage in a major price war,” he explained. He added: “Every country wants to be less dependent on foreign commerce and become more sustainable, so they’ve expanded their domestic production. We need to be more competitive if we want to enter their markets.”

The Jorge Group accounts for 18% of the pork meat exported by Spain and is responsible for 3% of the protein imported by China. According to Mr. Samper, however, the secret to the company’s success over the past eight decades is right here in Spain: “The key is to locate the processing plants close to where the raw materials are – mainly Aragón, Catalonia and Extremadura. We make sure that no animal ever has to travel more than 75 kilometres.”

Green diversification

Spain’s sixth-largest pork producer has another secret weapon: diversifying its business model to include other areas besides meat production. Mr. Semper cited two major divisions of the Jorge Group that embody this diversified approach: Jorge Energy and Jorge Green. “Jorge Energy was the first company to get into renewable technology auctions,” he explained. “At present, we have 70 megawatts of wind energy and 36.6 megawatts of photovoltaic energy up and running.” He added: “Our goal for 2020 is to reach 622 gigawatts in wind energy and 92 gigawatts in photovoltaic energy.”

The main aim of Jorge Green, meanwhile, is to “reduce the company’s environmental footprint”, Mr. Semper explained. This agricultural division has a total of 5,700 hectares of organic farmland, 170 of which are planted with hardwood trees (more than 53,000 cherry trees and 26,000 walnut trees).

The first session of the 12th ESADE-Deloitte “Challenges and Opportunities of Family Businesses” Lecture Series also featured the participation of Fernando Ruiz, President of Deloitte, Gerard Costa, Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing at ESADE, and Pedro Navarro, Deputy Executive Chairman of the ESADE Foundation Board of Trustees.