Facundo and Lola got married on 26 November 1944, forming both a family and a family company at the same time, engaged in the manufacture and sale of nuts and dried fruit.
During the years after the war, there were few possibilities for Free Trade food (the majority of the products were intervened). Nuts and dried fruit were free and especially sunflower seeds.
Facundo and Lola saw what is now called a “market niche” and they tackled it with courage without any capital of their own and starting with an initial credit of 90,000 pesetas from the former Banco Hispano Americano. With determination and vision, they started an attractive business project, which apart from satisfying the need for healthy food at a really attractive price (…the Spanish expression “that man can’t even afford to buy sunflower seeds”…), covered times of leisure and enjoyment, fostering group consumption… Who refused to give a handful of Facundo Seeds to a friend…?
They were difficult times, their only cards were their work and their honesty. With their example, they always transmitted that “the best business is: Being honest”, because if you are honest, your suppliers, your bank, your customers and your consumers will realise this and will never forget you.
They gradually formed a team of loyal, supporting workers; simple people, men and women from the village and the region, of the kind who consider the company to be their own because both the bosses, as they were called informally in the factory, and the workers, lived from it.
In the villages of Castile when the alarm sounded due, for example, to a fire, its men and women were willing to risk their lives to put out a neighbour’s fire. Everyone helped everyone. Because of that philosophy, it is easy to understand that when a serious train accident occurred opposite the factory on 21 August 2006, all the machines immediately stopped, and the workers jumped over the railway fencing and climbed onboard the train to save the injured passengers. |
