While Catalonia has gained 30% of its population in recent decades, it has lost more than 50% of its horticultural area in 25 years. Demographic dynamics are added to climate changes, which complicate production in Catalonia. "It is increasingly difficult to get through the summer, with high temperatures and little thermal contrast," emphasizes the CEO and founder of Ametller Origen, Josep Ametller.
Given these difficulties and with the determination to continue producing in Catalonia, the family business has projected an agri-food hub in Mont-roig del Camp, which will house the group's R&D area and will focus on efficient agriculture on more than 115 hectares of now unproductive land. On them, the company will build technified greenhouses that will occupy about 50 hectares when the project is fully deployed, which will focus on hydroponic agriculture, which requires less water and less surface area than conventional agriculture.
To build this new R&D hub, 50 million euros will be progressively invested, in what will be the largest investment made in the horticultural sector in Catalonia. So far, the group has allocated one million euros to the purchase of the different plots that make up the land, 90% of which already belongs to the company.
Now, the company plans to start work to turn these stony plots into its hub. As Ametller has detailed, the intention is to have a first module of about three hectares operational by the end of 2026 or early 2027. Afterwards, the group will continue to deploy the project, with the aim of completing it in about six years. When fully operational, Ametller estimates that it will generate about 500 jobs, including researchers, nutritionists, technicians and agricultural workers.
From the hub, the company will work on the traceability of its crops in an integral way, from the seedling to the packaging. The group, which closed 2024 with a turnover of 680 million, is making this commitment to promote "a paradigm shift" in agriculture, and to continue growing: "Everything we invest in R&D and product knowledge makes us unique," Ametller highlighted. And this knowledge will not stay within the group, but the intention is to share it with farmers who can then supply products to the company: "We want to grow 20% each year, and we will not be able to do so if more farmers do not accompany us."
"Each time we have more partners that accompany us" and complement Ametller Origen's own production, which now sprouts from its more than 1,800 hectares distributed along the Mediterranean axis. With these lands, the company supplies 40% of the fruit and vegetables for its 146 stores, and also sells to third parties. The group plans to add to its strategy not only the new hub in Mont-roig del Camp, but also its future Agroparc in Gelida, which is waiting to overcome some final administrative hurdles to start construction. When both projects are underway, they will feed each other: Gelida, with an extensive agriculture model mainly for fruit, and Mont-roig, with a technified and hydroponic system, which will prioritize products such as strawberries, tomatoes, lettuce, and aromatic plants.
This system depends so little on water and land that, in fact, the group has prioritized locating it on stony soil practically incompatible with agriculture, where in the mid-20th century there were fields but where now only 10% is used for agriculture, as explained by Ametller Origen's Director of Innovation and Sustainability, Joan Simó.
"It's a particularly bad terrain for agriculture. And why are we located here? Because in the hydroponic system, cultivation is independent of the land, and we didn't want to occupy land in a place with good soil that can be used for agriculture," Simó summarizes. The facilities will also have water collection systems on their greenhouses, which can cover 40% of their irrigation needs. In addition, they are working with the City Council on the possibility of channeling water from a nearby treatment plant that now discharges it into the sea, and building a desalination plant, with the aim of making the installation independent in water use.
Hydroponic cultivation also addresses another of the sector's challenges: the lack of workers"We neither work the land nor use water resources from the area," defends Simó, who has highlighted thathydroponic cultivation multiplies the yield of conventionalwhile drastically reducing water needs, which goes from 250 liters to 20 per square meter.
In addition to improving the quantity and quality of products, this type of cultivation also addresses another of the sector's challenges: the lack of workers. This system "allows for the transformation of jobs to attract talent," since conditions improve by reducing the physical demands of the work and seasonality, as the work extends throughout the year. With these characteristics, the group aspires for working in the field to be comparable to working in other sectors, including the industrial sector, which is also preparing to grow in the area with the future plant of the Korean Lotte, which will manufacture battery components near the Ametller hub. The goal? To make working in a store or a factory as attractive as harvesting tomatoes.