Jamón Serrano 

June 13, 2013 - Following our recent promotional campaigns in Germany and Denmark, the next objective of the Spanish Fundación del Jamón Serrano is Poland, a market with great interest for Spanish ham companies where we will be spending all this week with our promotional activities to continue promoting Spanish Serrano Ham in the cities of Poznan, Warsaw and Krakow.

The project includes presentations and courses at hotel and catering schools, tapas contests, presentations at the Spanish Embassy and other institutions and centers such as the Cervantes Institute in Krakow, workshops with the participation of Fundación companies, slicing and tasting workshops, meetings with the press and Horeca channels and participation at Wine Garden 2013, all in collaboration with PDO Ribera del Duero and Baena Olive Oil as part of the "Original Flavors. The Mediterranean Essence" program. 

The program began with a training course for students from the Poznan Hotel and Catering School and another course for professionals in the catering sector.  The Polish capital was then the setting for a two-day training course at the Technical School of Gastronomy in Warsaw, where we met with members of the press at Soul Kitchen Restaurant for tastings and live tapas show cooking with Chef Fernando del Cerro, who holds a Michelin Star at his restaurant Casa José in Aranjuez (Madrid), and Polish Chef Andrzej Polan.  We wrapped up our first day with a reception at the Embassy with producers and the Spanish ambassador, Agustín Núñez Martínez, ICEX Spain Exports and Investments and public institutions.

On Wednesday we offered a presentation and workshops with Spanish #SerranoHam producers in Villa Foksal, followed by a reception for members of the press and representatives from the restaurant and catering sector, again with the collaboration of Fernando del Cerro. 

On Thursday and Friday, Krakow was the setting for Fundación activities, with a training course at the Hotel and Catering School and a course and tasting at the Cervantes Institute, including a ham slicing workshop and tapas contest. We will wrap up the week with our participation in "Wine Gardens", an important gastro-wine show held in Sierakow.

"Original Flavors: The Mediterranean Essence", is a three-year promotional plan inaugurated in 2011 and subsidized by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment and the European Commission, which was created to promote Serrano ham, extra virgin olive oil from Baena and Ribera del Duero wines in Poland, Germany and Denmark.

Institutional and Promotional Activities of the Fundación

In the promotional sphere, the Fundación is successfully carrying out the first phase of its international Promotion Plan for this year with ample media coverage after finishing the activities that were carried out in Germany, Denmark and Japan during the first quarter, continuing with countries such as Vietnam and Poland during the second quarter.

During the month of February, the Fundación traveled to Germany, where we offered a complete program of sales presentations and promotional activities in Munich and Berlin, both at hotel and catering schools and through institutional interventions and workshops for professionals in the catering sector, the press and customer motivators.

The Fundación's next destination was Denmark, a market with high buying power and unquestionable interest for the Spanish ham industry, with our participation in the Copenhagen Food Fair, the main food fair in the country. We offered tastings and showcooking, as well as training sessions for catering students and presentations for the authorities, press, importers and representatives from the restaurant and catering sectors.

We complemented our promotional activities in northern Europe with the visit of a group of German, Polish and Danish journalists to the drying sheds of Fundación del Jamón Serrano, where we explained the production, quality control and certification processes of Serrano Ham.

The Fundación has also been present in important markets in Asia. We participated -in coordination with the OECE (Spanish Meat Export Office), of which we are members- in Foodex, the prestigious Japanese food fair held in Tokyo, organizing a series of presentations in the Japanese capital. We were also present at the seventh edition of Food & Hotel Vietnam (FHV), a food festival held recently in Ho Chi Minh City, considered one of the most important and prestigious international food fairs in Asia, bringing together specialists in the food sector from Vietnam and other Asian markets.

In the institutional sphere, the Fundación also participated recently in the European Commission Consultative Group on Agricultural Production, held in Brussels, to address important issues for the future of Serrano ham produced in Spain, such as the possibility of transforming the current TSG into a PGI. This Consultative Group also addressed other issues related to the protection of Quality Denominations, working to initiate Community Regulation 1151/2012 on quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs, including Serrano ham.

The Fundación was also invited to participate in the AECOC Meat and Meat Products Congress, a forum of great interest for analyzing the evolution and trends of our sector. In this setting, we offered a presentation on our promotion, communication, training and information activities, and stressed the need within the meat product sector to transmit to the consumer the valuable properties and characteristics of the product in a sector in which negative news is often the norm.