Maria Ruiz |
Granada (EFE).- The European Union has been certifying the quality of bread from Alfacar (Granada) for almost a decade with a Protected Geographical Indication (IGP), a seal that only four breads in the country have but that is not enough to feed a market that fights against false labels and rising costs.
There are towns that have bread under their arms, municipalities whose name appears in the popular imagination linked to the quality of their loaves and that historically smell of firewood and slow-cooked dough like Alfacar.
The quality certification of this bread from Granada was also cooked over low heat, which, since November 2013, has had a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), a quality seal granted by the European Union.
The Alfacar bakers’ union began in 2008 to amass all the requirements to achieve this certificate for its products, a kind of insurance to differentiate itself from unfair competition.
Only four in Spain
The “Pan de Alfacar” brand then joined three other protected identifications in the country that recognize the quality of Pan de Cruz (Ciudad Real), the Catalan Pa de Pagès, which also received its PGI in 2013, and the typical Cea bread from Galicia.
Alfacar bread then added 21 workshops from the town and the neighboring municipality of Víznar, a figure that they hoped to double in a few months with that European guarantee, but that has not been enough.
Although in countless points in Andalusia it is advertised as a claim that there is “Pan de Alfacar”, the PGI was considered to close this year, although bakers have given themselves a kind of extension this year to rethink their future.
The price of a PGI
The president of the PGI Pan de Alfacar, Gabriel Vílchez, has told EFE that the bakers who are still working on the project are looking to turn things around, to cook a project again that clashes with the more expensive products and with a lot of Alfacar bread that is not it is.
And it is that being under the range of the PGI implies buying a certain flour that costs more, paying the quota and the bread certification tests, a series of expenses that many bakeries do not want to face.
Although bakeries, shops and even supermarkets cling to the centuries-old good reputation of Alfacar bread to attract customers, less than half of these breads and loaves meet the PGI standards: “some are not even made in Alfacar”.
Moorish essence
Alfacar owes the fame of its breads to the good work of the Moorish workshops transferred from generation to generation to know how to mix its few and simple ingredients -flour, sourdough, yeast, water and salt- and all the patience in the world.
For a time, half of the residents of this municipality in the Granada metropolitan area lived directly or indirectly from their bread, but the tahonas crumbled due to unfair competition, pre-cooked bread and the submerged economy of the sector.
All the breads of the IGP are made in a reflective solera, in the heat of the ground, and add the quality of the water from its springs, the microclimate offered by the Sierra de Huétor Natural Park and the knowledge transmitted for at least 500 years of parents to children to cook a unique bread.
shield the future
“We are going to die of success, but not of selling bread”, has assumed Vílchez, who stresses that Alfacar’s bread is healthier, but it is sold for one euro despite the fact that it should set its price at 1.30 euros, and that It is not healthy for the sector.
“We have prepared several campaigns for this year because we are looking for Spain to pass like it was in France, for there to be recognition of quality bread,” added the president of the PGI, who also calls for more inspections and less bureaucracy to put an end to competition. unfair.
He proposes that it be simpler, that if a bakery advertises Alfacar bread and does not have the IGP label, it is fined and that product goes directly to a social cause.
And so, with proposals, the sector seeks to save an ancient business that still has a lot of crumb from burning.