Few examples remain of the old municipal slaughterhouses. These facilities, now mostly converted into civic centers or cultural spaces, are a vestige of a past where the common practice was the shared use of production spaces. With the industrialization of processes and an increasingly competitive food market, dominated by large brands, these spaces gradually disappeared. However, since 2018, shared workshops have begun to proliferate in Catalonia, replicating this philosophy and making it easier for small producers to start in the difficult world of entrepreneurship.
Currently, there are already about twenty community facilities throughout Catalonia, employing a hundred professionals. These are facilities equipped with professional machinery and designed to support emerging projects, as they allow entrepreneurship in the food sector without having to invest in complex installations or machinery. These spaces, therefore, act as a coworking applied to the food sector, as they allow the use of these facilities by paying their corresponding monthly or annual fee. "The idea is that these spaces can act as a business and entrepreneur incubator, but instead of tables, chairs, and computers, they have stoves and pots," summarizes Eloi Guinjoan, innovation technician at the Associació d'Iniciatives Rurals i Marítimes de Catalunya (ARCA).
Since 2007, the year the first modern workshop, the Viver de Celleristes de la Conca de Barberà, was created, a total of 154 entrepreneurs from the agri-food sector have used these workshops. "We are talking about spaces that are perhaps not very relevant on an economic scale, since a maximum of five or ten entrepreneurs work simultaneously in each workshop, but which have great value for the territory and for the local economy, because they facilitate entrepreneurship in rural areas and, furthermore, promote local and seasonal products," Guinjoan argues.
The start-up of these facilities normally requires an initial investment of about 200,000 euros, due to the high cost of specialized machinery, an unaffordable amount for a small producer. Half of these spaces are intended for the production of processed vegetables and prepared meals, but there are also more specific ones, such as the Tres Cadires liquor workshops (Arbeca) or the shared cheese workshop El Quall, in Alpens (Lluçanès).
Specifically, currently there are 19 workshops operating throughout Catalonia, and there are ten more in the creation phase, such as the shared workshop in Mataró or the Tremolina de Muntanya cooperative housing project, which is expected to start up this year and will also include a shared workshop in its facilities. These new workshops will provide services to areas that until now did not have one, such as the regions of Lleida or Terres de l'Ebre, since most workshops are currently concentrated in Central Catalonia.
It was precisely in Central Catalonia where these spaces began to emerge. In 2016, Concactiva, the autonomous development body of Conca de Barberà, decided to replicate the model of Viver de Celleristes, the first modern workshop, created by this same body in 2007, but now focused on prepared meals. This is how Espai Cuina de Montblanc emerged, which required an initial investment of 300,000 euros, and which is the shared workshop through which the most entrepreneurs have passed, a total of 29 since its launch. This space has hosted everything from catering and pastry or coca production companies, to legume transformation projects or kombucha production.
"The objective is for people to start their project in this space and be able to study if it is profitable so that, within a period of about five years, they can grow and open their own facilities," explains Bet Janer, Concactiva technician, in charge of coordinating Espai Cuina. In this facility, there have been cases of producers who, thanks to the use of the shared workshop, have grown their business and opened their own facilities, such as Can Camat, a legume transformation project, or MenjaMiques, which produces carob cream.
The Generalitat has closed the second line of aid to promote shared workshops, with a budget of 1.2 million"There have also been cases that have not gone forward, but these should not be considered a failure, because, thanks to the existence of shared workshops, they have been able to study whether they were profitable, without needing to ask for loans or invest all their savings," Janer defends. To make use of these shared workshops,a prior reservation must be made and a usage fee paid for each hour, which is around 8 euros in the vast majority of workshops.Some, like the Espai Cuina de Montblanc, also require an annual fee starting from the second year, which in this case is 500 euros.
After Espai Cuina, and especially from 2018 onwards, shared workshops have proliferated throughout Catalonia. The Tagamanent City Council decided to promote Veamat in 2018, the first municipal shared workshop. "With this space, we established jurisprudence, because there were not many modern references of this type yet, and, through intense technical work, we established the bases and rules of coexistence to make them work," defends the mayor of Tagamanent and promoter of Veamat, Ignasi Martínez. The mayor states that they have received many visits and have helped in the creation of shared workshops even in other regions, such as the Basque Country and the Community of Madrid, as Catalonia is "a pioneering territory" in the creation of these shared facilities.
From then on, a series of regulatory documents for these spaces emerged, such as the shared workshops manual, the guide for the creation and management of shared agri-food production spaces, and even a map of all the workshops in Catalonia. Since 2018, ARCA has been the body responsible for supporting and promoting these collective infrastructures, as well as encouraging the creation of public aid. In addition, the Generalitat has also been promoting these spaces since 2020, through the Strategic Food Plan of Catalonia, to move towards a more sustainable food model rooted in the territory. Recently, the second line of aid from this plan has been closed, with a budget of 1.2 million euros, which should help the dozen spaces that are in the creation phase, as well as improve existing ones.
The Barcelona Provincial Council also created the Pect BCN Smart Rural aid line, through which three shared workshops in Central Catalonia were promoted: Obradora (Manresa), El Quall (Lluçanès) and El Tall (Bages). Normally, public administrations are the ones that promote these workshops due to the needs of the community and according to the type of product predominant in their region. Even so, there are also cases of companies that decide to share their spaces to obtain an extra benefit or producers who have started their project within the framework of these shared facilities and, once their idea grows and they create their own plant, they decide to make it shared.
"Shared workshops are a public service and, therefore, are loss-making spaces that do not generate economic profit for administrations, but they bring great value to the territory," defends the mayor of Tagamanent. Martínez explains that the usage fees paid by users only help cover maintenance and cleaning costs, and in no case generate profits.
Producers who share space often also help each other and share suppliersEl Cor del Montseny is one of these projects that emerged within the shared workshops —specifically, in Tagamanent— and offers cooking courses and catering, but also makes cookies, flower soft drinks or vegetable pâtés from the surplus of Montseny producers. "If you want to start your project on a small scale, you cannot do it without the existence of shared production spaces, since competition with large brands is very fierce, and when you tie yourself to a loan you start producing thinking about quantity and not quality," defends Marissa Peláez, creator of Cor del Montseny.
Peláez decided to start his project precisely in 2018, when Veamat was created, and since then he manufactures in these facilities and only sells through his website and in small stores that value his product. In addition to the opportunity to undertake without a large initial investment, Peláez identifies as another advantage of using a shared workshop the synergies and connections that are created in these spaces. Although two producers cannot coincide in the facilities at the same time, but rather each producer reserves the space for their specific work hour, Peláez reports that many of them share suppliers and help each other when they have doubts.
"In an increasingly individualistic society, these synergies between small producers are key to the survival of the countryside and local products," Peláez states. On the other hand, ARCA also organizes annual meetings and facilitates communication channels among the hundred producers who currently work in these spaces. Within these workshops, individualized business advice is also offered, such as viability plans or market studies, as well as help in promoting their product, with the creation of websites or social networks, and participation in food fairs. "Shared workshops draw on the tradition and philosophy of cooperative production, but they are, at the same time, modern spaces, adapted to current regulations and that comply with all health guarantees," Guinjoan summarizes.
As food products are made in these spaces, they must also pass exhaustive health controls. "Every project that comes to us has to first go through a health review," explains the mayor of Tagamanent. The machinery in these facilities also complies with legal and hygiene guarantees and, therefore, working within a shared workshop also ensures producers compliance with these health measures and that the product can be sold on the market without legal complications. Thus, in addition to the cleaning that each user has to do after use, the workshops also have an external cleaning service to ensure the hygiene of the facilities.
"In shared workshops, producers benefit because they can test their project, but the local economy and we as consumers also benefit, as we ensure that proximity and quality products are created in these spaces," Janer defends. "These spaces are an essential piece to foster entrepreneurship in mostly depopulated areas, but also to counterbalance the large food industry, led by big producers, and help keep this parallel, healthier and more sustainable food sector alive," concludes Guinjoan.