Martínez Loriente turns to new sheep providers
Industrias Cárnicas Piqueras (Incarlopsa) has reduced its activity and business to pork and processed pork products (cured white ham, cooked sausages, other cured white pork products and processed cured Iberian pork) by withdrawing from all activity involving the slaughter of sheep and wool sheep and the marketing of both types of meat, the process having been concluded at the beginning of this year. This operational reorganisation of the Cuenca-based company has led Martinez Loriente, a Mercadona inter-supplier, to assign to four companies the slaughter of sheep, a species that up to now was slaughtered and supplied by Incarlopsa. The new partners of the Valencia-based company are the Murcia-based company Matadero Industrial Torre-Pacheco; Ovinos Manchegos – from Tomelloso (Ciudad Real); Covap – whose slaughterhouse is located in Pozoblanco (Cordoba); and Oviso – in Trujillo (Caceres). Martinez Loriente itself, which used a processing plant (boning, filleting and packaging) that was part of the Incarlopsa industrial complex in Tarancon for its lamb production activity, has centralised the preparation of lamb at its own facilities, now supplied by the aforementioned four new partners.
The withdrawal of the Cuenca-based company from the sheep and cattle business involves the centralisation, within the group, of all the activity and marketing of lamb abd beef and at Martínez Loriente, 45% of which is owned by Incarlopsa itself and Mercadona’s supplier of its entire range of red meat (pork, beef, lamb), hamburgers, preparations and processed products. In fact, Martínez Loriente, which lacks sheep slaughter lines, was responsible for most of the slaughter and business volume of sheep at Incarlopsa. The La Mancha-based company distributed all its meat of the aforementioned species in carcass format, thereby directing it to the industrial sector, including, in addition to the Valencia-based company, other cutting companies, etc. In total, Incarlopsa’s business activity saw it ranked first in the Spanish sheep business, as stated in the most recent report on this species published by the magazine Alimarket.
On the other hand, as for cattle, a species that Martínez Loriente does slaughter, the Incarlopsa operation had nothing to do with that company, as they didn´t supply it. Hence, the volume of slaughter and sale of cattle at the Cuenca-based company was considerably lower than that registered for sheep. In 2013 – the last full year in which Incarlopsa conducted business with these two species, they sold 8,336 tons of lamb and 1,050 tons of beef, which fell to 4,737 and 269 tons respectively in 2014 due to the aforementioned withdrawal from the industry and business. Incarlopsa had been registering slumps in both the lamb and beef business in previous years, before finally deciding to withdraw, from the 14,490 tons of lamb and 3,565 tons of beef sold to the market in 2010.
A strategy focused on pork, promoting exports
In brief, the company´s exit from the lamb and beef markets has led to Incarlopsa implementing a new strategy focused on pork. The history of the Cuenca-based company with this species has traditionally been associated with white pigs – in the field of the marketing of meat and the manufacture of processed products – and they began working with Iberian pigs in 2012, when the company became an integrated supplier of cured Iberian pork products for Mercadona, a chain to which Incarlopsa was already supplying cured white ham and cooked sausages.
Now that the company´s Tarancon slaughterhouse no longer works with sheep and cattle slaughter – species for which it had a capacity for 15,000 and 400 heads a week respectively – and pursuant to the reorganisation of their facilities, Incarlopsa has more space in which to work with pigs. As such, the company will be able to continue to increase the volume of pig slaughter registered in recent years, which rose from 114,100 tons in 2010 to 137,078 tons in 2013 and 144,304 tons last year (tons/channel).
Disregarding the raw material destined for its own industry, Incarlopsa placed 112,200 tons of pork on the market last year, a volume 1.1% higher than that registered in 2013 and most of which was delivered to Martinez Loriente. This sale of the company’s meat now has a new driving force: exports, consisting of fresh and frozen products. Exports of pork in 2014 accounted for most of the € 5.4 million revenue registered by Incarlopsa outside Spain. The company registered the highest increase, 3.6%, in the sale of cured/cooked meat products, which amounted to 57,306 tons, 43% of which was cured white ham. These increases in pork and processed white and Iberian pork largely offset the drop in Incarlopsa´s lamb and beef business. Thus, the company´s total turnover in 2014 fell by only 2.7%, registering € 512.4 million.
– PUBLISHED IN ALIMARKET ON 18/03/2015 –