OUR HISTORY
Discover the incredible story of how our family got here...
- Encarni Ciudad:
"Finca La Rosala is a family story. In the past, my family used to grow cereals and when my father died, I inherited it.
The name Rosala comes from the fact that the soil is red-pink. In our village, Calzada de Calatrava, it was called Rosada, but over time the name changed to Rosala as it was easier to pronounce.
When we inherited La Rosala, my husband and I researched what to plant or what we could improve, and we discovered that in Turkey and the Middle East, in dry land, the ideal place is to plant pistachios as they require little water, a lot of cold in winter and a lot of heat in summer. So what better land for this than Castilla - La Mancha, so we went for it."
- Pedro Ciudad Sr.:
"Once we planted pistachios, I continued researching them and wanted to learn how to roast them, as I have loved all nuts since I was a child.
Fortunately, in our village there was a very famous master roaster in the province, Angelito, whose family had been roasting nuts since the 19th century. So I asked him to teach me, to which he said no at first, but, strangely enough, one day in 2013 he came to my office and said: Pedro, the time has come, come with me.
Angelito took me to his workshop and, every afternoon for several months, he taught me his ancestral techniques.
Once I finished, I was amazed and I started to roast like him at home and to give the nuts that I made myself to my family and friends. I also realised that nuts, at that time, were not as highly valued gastronomically in Spain as they deserved to be, and I started to add flavours such as lemon or orange to them."
-Pedro Jr. (eldest son)
"At the end of 2013 I was finishing my studies in Business Management, when my father started to send me the nuts and dried fruits that he made and I shared them with friends and teachers, who were amazed by them.
When I finished my studies I discovered the Salón Gourmet fair and convinced my parents to attend and taste the quality of our nuts and dried fruits at one of the most important and demanding fairs in Europe.
To our surprise, the acceptance of our nuts was spectacular and we won an award for innovation, giving us the final push to create Fina La Rosala as a company.
The commercial name came from the origin of our family farm and we added 2013 in honour of the year my father learned to roast with Angelito.
Today, all four members of the family work at Finca La Rosala, we develop new flavours every year and we are a leading company in the gourmet nut sector, being present in more than 15 countries."
