The Moner jewelry store in Vilafranca del Penedès has teamed up with five pastry shops in the municipality to hide gold jewelry in the roscones de Reyes. Of the 5,000 roscones that will be sold starting Friday, there will be ten that will have a hidden bracelet or ring. They are 18-karat gold pieces, of our own design. The rings are finished with blue topaz and diamonds, and are valued at 650 euros, while the bracelets retail for 250 euros. “We wanted to encourage local commerce with a campaign that was completely disruptive,” Gena Moner, the fifth generation of the jeweler who promotes this activity, explains to ACN. The pastry shops that have joined – all with a long tradition – celebrate the initiative “because it is great, dynamic and fresh.”
Gena Moner assures that with this activity “she wanted to highlight the work of pastry shops with Villafranco DNA” and give a twist to a Christmas campaign that has been moving in the same dynamics for years. “By hiding these rings we achieve a win-to-win in dissemination and advertising,” she highlights. And the echo is the main benefit that Moner trusts, since they will hide the ten jewels without receiving any financial compensation from the sale of the roscones, which will maintain the approximate price of last year.
The forecast, says this jeweler, is that each of the five pastry shops will have a ring and a bracelet that they will hide among the thousand roscones that they will knead in their workshop. The pastry chefs have agreed to put the jewel wrapped inside the marzipan, cream or cream together with the king, “since it is a figure that everyone looks for.”
The previous days, within the framework of some tests in one of the workshops, the five pastry chefs highlighted to ACN that the initiative allows to increase “the expectation” that the after-dinner meal on Three Kings’ Day traditionally has. “It is a party that is full of magic and this game fits perfectly,” explains Marc Parés, from Panadería Parara.
The pastry chefs are preparing this year’s roscones campaign with some nerves “because, once they are all kneaded and mixed together, no one will know which one contains the jewel.” From the Bertran pastry shop, Ramon Bertran points out that “these are days of many nerves and stress, since they have to make a thousand roscones in a few hours, but the initiative immediately seemed very interesting and fun.”
An interest that has also been palpable among customers, since the game has accelerated orders this year. If the Three Kings roscones were usually ordered after New Year’s Eve, this time the bakeries have received numerous calls to make reservations. Before Christmas, more than 20% of the roscones were already ordered. Among the five participating establishments, they see it as unfeasible to expand production “because it has been at the limit of the workshops’ capacity for years.”
Both the bakers and the jeweler who promoted the initiative admit that it will be a mystery to know what will happen when someone finds the ring or bracelet, since there is no instruction sheet that sets the rules for who has to keep it. Moner invites families and groups of friends to agree in advance whether the prize will go to the person who buys the roscón or to the person who finds the jewel.
“We assume there will be some conflict,” says, laughing, Fèlix Mestre, from Forn y Pastelería Rius, who is in favor of the reward going to the person who bought the roscón. Regardless of who is the winner of a “totally healthy” competition, the pastry chefs have planned to give away some desserts to the person who goes to the establishment with the jewel found. In turn, Gena Moner points out that the bracelets have a small plate that can be engraved in a personalized way.
The five pastry shops that have joined the Joyería Moner initiative are Bertran, Galí, Parés, Rius y Trens, all with a long tradition of several generations in Vilafranca del Penedès.
