PRODUCTION

The Fuertes group has invested over eight million euros in improving the Palancares factory in Bullas (Murcia), expanding chamber capacity, loading docks, and a floor for manufacturing heat-pressed and ultra-filtered cheeses, new lines, which have allowed the company to multiply their production capacity by ten, making it possible to reach ten million kilos annually. The entire manufacturing process of the cheese is automated, though the applied techniques are still based on the traditional hand craft.

The primary purpose of these recent investments is to implement production systems that allows the company to fuse the techniques from traditionally hand crafted cheese with the complete automation of the food production, and furthermore to guarantee the future growth of Palancares alimentación. This way, introducing new technological processes will further a better exploitation of the raw materials, thanks to the use of the excellent technology for the extraction of nutrients, technological treatment of the whey, making it possible to reuse it in different process lines, which will give a significant increase of the operational efficiency.

The company located in Bullas have the intention of making cheeses from Palancares a benchmark of Spanish cheese, both in Spain and internationally. Murcia has consolidated itself as the primary Spanish region in the export of goat cheese, especially to the US and Europe, which are the destinations of more than half of the production.