The company Embutidos La Hoguera employs 129 people permanently, more than one in four residents in San Pedro Manrique (Soria, 650 residents). Not all employees live in the town, but the town resists the demographic winter thanks to this company in the sausage industry. It has been working in pork since 1986, but it comes from an initiative that four young people from Manrique started in 1972. The company defends remaining in San Pedro Manrique despite the inherent difficulties, because they believe that in the municipality there is a present and a future, and because it increases the quality of the product. The manager, Teo Martínez, the second generation of the family at the head of the business, is up front: “The great concentration in cities is a structural and growing problem, we want to reverse it.” Visiting the group’s headquarters means passing through a meeting room presided over by several hams, canes of sausage loin, strings of chorizo awaiting diners and the irresistible torreznos, for which they are now seeking the European title of Protected Geographical Indication. The reach of La Hoguera reaches the kids, as seen on a sign on the door: the eighth children’s drawing contest will soon be held, with a pig in the image. Martínez, 41, has been at the helm since 2016, leading a firm already underway as an inheritance from the work of his father, Carlos, and several friends who resisted the demographic drain of his time. Since the son has been in charge, there have been several expansions, the Torrezno has gained prominence as a provincial benchmark and hiring continues to increase: in 2023, 5.5 million euros were dedicated to an expansion of 3,000 square meters for a new boning room and a slicing room, and in 2024 they had a turnover of 47 million, a figure that they intend to exceed in 2025. They have recently sold La Hoguera to conglomerate Congelados de Navarra, a common movement in meat groups, but the bosses remain the same, and so does the philosophy. Success draws from locality, from what already works, extols Teo Martínez: «In a world of concentration, we are committed to quality distinctions in Soria so that development stays here. The products are made here and are rooted. That means we can have a future.» And he adds: «From the humility of the town in a depopulated area, people saw that we were generating employment. If it weren’t for La Hoguera, the town would be much smaller, without a school or health center,» he says. In the company they claim that they work with their own pigs and develop a model more attached to the raw material and the territory. “We had pigs, we had to transform them in San Pedro because that’s where the employment is, the closer you get to the product, the more personnel it generates,” he adds.
Sustainability
Marian Fernández, director of the Soria employers association (FOES), emphasizes that the company “is in one of the most depopulated areas in Europe and is an exemplary case of sustained growth and intelligent diversification, stopping the loss of inhabitants.” Fernández values that «essential services such as the school, health center, nursing home, bank office, pharmacy… essential for rural viability have been recovered.» La Hoguera triumphs “due to the comprehensive control of its value chain, which combines tradition, quality and innovation, guaranteeing profitability and consolidating a sustainable local project, where immigrant labor strengthens cultural diversity and contributes to the resilience of the territory.” Teo Martínez, general director of Embutidos La Hoguera, in San Pedro Manrique (Soria), on November 19.María FerrerThe businessman remembers with nostalgia that his father, upon returning from mandatory military service in 1972, was scandalized by the exponential depopulation of the place and with three friends he invested in a pig farm to supply animals for the classic home slaughters. From there to 47 million euros in turnover: in 1986 they founded the current company and since then they have grown, dealing with problems such as lack of funds, with two partners raising the warehouse by hand to save the bricklayers while the others worked in agriculture to make some money, or the untimely swine flu. The sausage, which is sold all over the world, is worked and stuffed in that factory, to which each morning and afternoon buses come with workers from Soria city, something that Martínez sees as “unsustainable in the long term” because the key to rural resistance lies in workers having a home and stability, something at risk due to the housing crisis in the towns. Many of his employees are migrants, due to the lack of labor from Soria, and he rejects distinctions, but asks that public initiatives be promoted to give them shelter: «For me, someone from Peru or Morocco is the same as Badajoz.» The mayor of Manrique, José Antonio Hernández—from a group of voters—has experienced the development of La Hoguera since it began and he managed a modest rabbit farm. “It was a company with a lot of enthusiasm and desire to do things, we must praise the effort to get where they have arrived,” says Hernández. «Each expansion was a burst of oxygen. The town and the region have a lot to thank them for.» These works require workers, this workforce consumes in stores and bars…, and so on until the circle of the local productive economy is closed. Teo Martínez calls the entity, with an easily recognizable logo as a sponsor of provincial soccer matches in Castilla y León or a supplier of meat batches for winners in sports events, a “comprehensive project from the field to the table.” All with modesty but without setting limits: «We want to continue growing sustainably. We do not want to limit the growth of the company and the area and make it more attractive.»
