Christmas, in houses of all of Spain, has Asturian seal and is watered by Sidra El Gaiterero.
The consumption of its beacred product is already such a rooted tradition that this time is 80% of the company’s sales around the world (sold in 30 countries of five continents).
Behind his success – scheduled at 35 million euros that the business group billed in 2019 – there is a family saga that lives its fifth generation and has cast roots in Villaviciosa.
The origin must be placed in four entrepreneurs of the late nineteenth century.
The Hermanos Alberto and Eladio del Valle, Industriales, were allied with Bernardo de la Ballina and Ángel Fernández, financial, who made fortune in emigration in America and upon his return wanted to invest to make his land prosper.
The Alliance was forged in 1888 and sealed on May 24, 1890 with the constitution of the company Valle, Ballina and Fernández.
The company retains its name to this day and that character as a family business, although only one of those family branches, Fernández, who have the practice of the shareholder is.
In front, it is already the fifth generation, with Ricardo head as Director General, María Cardín as a commercial director and Javier Bermejo as a financial director.
Family ties unite them at three.
The grandparents of him were cousins and managers in the third generation and, in turn, Javier and Mary are still cousins in the first degree, while Ricardo is a third cousin of both.
The fourth generation and the Fourth, Bernardo and José Cardín, Uncle and Father of Mary and up to 2020, at the forefront, are already century, and in the board of directors.
The transition was made peaceful, like everything in the Gaiter.
In three years of maturation, between 2018 and 2020 the witness passed the new generation in an “orderly process” in which it has been to ensure that familiar character and stuck to Villaviciosa that has been part of the company’s DNA and has woven
your success.
His cider is as united to Asturias that his hallmark is a package of the region.
The question was forced.
Why a piking?
Ricardo Head explains to Loc that in the first years the company used several different brands, Valle, Ballina and Fernández, the Asturian and the Gaiter and the latter “was the one that most liked” and they stayed with him, taking him already, with a famous
Gaiter to the head, at the Universal Exhibition of Paris of 1900.
As for the musician that is used in the image of all its bottles, it has never existed, it has been a commercial bet that managed to catapulted success, especially from 1960. From the hand of the Asturian Advertisman Manuel Brun and Low
The direction of José Cardín, made a pioneer and millionaire advertising investment that flooded with its brand metro stations, radio wedges and all means of communication of the time.
“We were pioneers also in that,” Ricardo presumes.
From that time is the famous slogan that they continue to use: Sidra El Gaiterero, famous in the whole world.
In the Gaitero they are very proud of each of the names that make up their history and all remember them in a book or in the museum that have opened in their facilities, another pioneering action in the sector.
Declared Industrial Historical Heritage, it is one of the oldest wineries in Spain (1898), receives between 45,000 and 50,000 visits a year and it leaves the 25,000 million liters that sell each year.
His pride of a centenary company is compatible with the modernity and artisan production that retains with innovation and the use of state-of-the-art technologies, and if something is unnegotiable for them is to preserve the values that have allowed them to overcome crises like the one that arrived
In the 80s, when the branch of the Ballina family sold his part to José María Ruiz-Mateos.
He was made with 28% of the company’s titles, although, after the expropriation of Rumasa by the State, they managed to recover them.
This Christmas has surprised with an innovative product, the Rosé cider, and have managed to recover from the pandemic crisis and foresees close 2021 with 2019 business figures.
