• Pastoret entrepreneurs, the success of Catalan-speaking yoghurt
  • Sagas Tomás Pascual: "I'm less innovative than my father, but more of an entrepreneur"
  • Kaitxo Raquel González: From Clinical Assistant to Selling the World's Best Chocolate in Seven Countries and Three Continents

There are ideas that come together after a long period. The history of Casa Grande de Xanceda responds to the classic idiosyncrasy of any Galician family: homesickness, emigration, sacrifice. A global dream that became local in 1968 thanks to the saudade of Felipe and Victoria. "My grandparents founded the farm when they were retired, because my grandfather was a fan of cows," Cristina Fernández-Armesto, granddaughter of the founders and current partner of the organic yogurt company located in the town of Mesía (A Coruña), tells LOC.

"My grandfather was a correspondent during World War IIin London, then he lived for 20 years in Germany and also in the United States," he explains. "My grandmother was a Galician journalist and historian. Later, during the Transition, she entered politics and was a deputy for A Coruña. She was one of the few women constituents of the 78 Constitution and also became the first vice-president of Congress," she says about Felipe Fernández-Armesto, a renowned correspondent for La Vanguardia who covered the Nuremberg trials, and María Victoria Fernández-España, who between 1977 and 1986 was elected by the Popular Alliance and then moved to the Mixed Group.

Felipe and Victoria, journalist and politician who inaugurated the haciendaCedidas Casa Xanceda

But neither Madrid, nor America. The couple chose for their retirement a hacienda halfway between Ourense, his birthplace, and A Coruña, hers. All the proceeds were invested in heads. "The great-great-grandmothers of the cows we have now crossed the Atlantic," Cristina reveals. "It was said that the best were the Canadian ones, my grandfather bought 20 that he brought from Canada by boat and put them on 30 hectares of land. It was very clear to me that in Galicia it didn't make any sense to have them stabled or feed them."

When organic was not a trend, Don Felipe decided to take the lead. "Our cows have been making our land for half a century because he thought they had to feed themselves based on what they found in the pasture. I was already thinking about environmental and economic sustainability," he says.

View this post on Instagram

This awareness did not stop him from continuing to grow. "In Galicia it is very difficult to group land, because we usually have small farms. But my grandfather had a skill: for 30 years he was exchanging land with one neighbor, with another... He was buying sites and by the time he passed away he already had 160 hectares of land." His grandfather lived to the age of 98 without slowing down in his ambition. It was 2002 and the journalist had been widowed only a few years earlier and the family, unfamiliar with the countryside, had to decide what to do with the farm, which at the time had hundreds of cattle and was a supplier of milk for brands such as Pascual.

"We had to decide what to do because the next generations were not engaged in cattle ranching or farming." Cristina, who was working in a German fashion company at the time and was based in Madrid, decided with her siblings that they had to give the farm an added value to maintain the legacy of their saga. "That's when the idea of setting up an organic yogurt shop came up and we purposely made it next to the milking parlor. Then the fresh milk from the milking every day goes directly to our yogurt shop and there it is transformed into yogurt."

View this post on Instagram

Twenty years later, they employ 45 people and, despite their small size, they are the leading brand in organic yogurt sales throughout Spain. In 2022, the company had a turnover of €9.6 million. "We don't sell raw milk, just fermented milk. Our star product is plain yoghurt. Then we have the vanilla, the flavored ones... Also ice cream, kefir or cheese...", he says. Their yoghurts, made only with milk and fruit, are sold in chains such as El Corte Inglés or Carrefour.

Casa Grande de Xanceda has as an icon in its tubs and glasses the eighteenth-century mansion in which Felipe and Victoria once lived. Today it is the company's headquarters and more than 200 hectares of land surround its stone façade. "A large part is for grazing and another, 20%, is protected natural forest where we have oak trees, some of which are more than 200 years old; lagoons, wetlands where there are amphibians...".

The beautiful scenery of the estate attracted more than 12,000 visitors last year from the so-called eco-visits. In which its fans can meet the donkeys, mastiffs, cats and, of course, the 300 cows that make up Xanceda's particular walk of fame. "We want people to be a part of life on the farm and encourage them to name the cows. We have a creature called Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, Thatcher, Curie, Mafalda, Xena, Obelix, Frozen, Cleopatra, Rihanna, Shakira..." Clearly, the latter is just what it sounds like. Ingenious.

  • Enterprises
  • Galicia