On September 5, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food collected the new specifications for producers of Jijona nougat, which eliminates the requirement that almonds be, as previously stated, the material raw material comes from Alicante, Castellón and Valencia.
The Unió Llauradora i Ramadera filed an appeal against this modification, which was finally accepted, and now alleges that this change has modified the rules of the game. So much so that, according to the complaint, the large nougat companies refuse to pay producers a price that “at least covers the effective costs of production, as established by the Food Chain Law.” Meanwhile, they denounce, imports of almonds from third countries “are growing without stopping in the Valencian Community,” they say.
Against that change in the text – the previous one had been in force since 1996 – La Unió took a position, which defended then and does so now that “it cannot be that a brand that refers to the protected geographical identification of an area and that is used for promotion of nougat, do not clearly bet on the product closest possible to that demarcated area.” The proposal to change the PGI specifications arose from the Regulatory Council of which the Alicante nougat industries, but also public universities, packers, consumers and the Valencian Administration itself.
But after the change there was a new negotiation, which now also seems to blow up. And the agricultural association denounces that the large nougat companies that are part of the IGP “have broken the dialogue”, maintained in recent months with the mediation of the Department of Agriculture. They point out that the turning point is in the companies’ refusal to set out in a working document the payment for almonds at a price above the effective cost of production, an issue that, they insist, “stipulates state regulations regarding functioning and improvement of the food chain”.
La Unió, in its complaint, alleges a technical report prepared internally according to which the Valencian Community imported a total of 72.13 million kilograms of shelled almonds from other countries in 2023, “which represents the third year since data exists. with a greater imported volume and an increase of 225% over 2022”.
In addition, they provide data on the price and report that it was imported into the territory “much cheaper”, with an average quantity of €3.63/kg, a decrease in value of 29% compared to 2022. As they explain, 70% of Almond imports from Spain – the total is 103.6 million kilos – came to the Valencian Community.
That is why the agricultural association will ask the Department of Agriculture, whose work they value to achieve “a satisfactory solution”, to exclude the Regulatory Council of the PGI Jijona and Turrón de Alicante and its associated companies from the possibility of accessing any aid or subsidy financed with budget lines (own, external or co-financed) of the Generalitat Valenciana as long as they do not reliably use almonds produced in our territory. From the Ministry they explain to La Vanguardia that they will meet again with both parties and that they do not consider the negotiations finished.
“We suffer increasingly lower prices while we endure unfair competition from almonds imported from third countries and nougat manufacturers take advantage of a brand from here to sell almonds from outside the Valencian Community,” they indicate.
