The Ganadera del Valle de los Pedroches Cooperative (COVAP) has received an award at the 5th ANICE Meat Sector Awards in the category of sustainability and the environment, recognizing its contribution to creating a more sustainable agri-food chain in line with the responsibility criteria demanded by society. This fifth edition of the prestigious awards given by the National Association of Meat Industries in Spain (ANICE), the leading business organization of the Spanish meat sector, was held at the Complejo Duques de Pastrana in Madrid today, Thursday June 17, as part of the ANICE assembly, where Raúl Sanz, the cooperative’s Meat and Ibericos Group Director, accepted the award on its behalf.
RECOGNITION OF ITS COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY
COVAP’s strategic plan for 2021 will be based on a commitment to animal welfare, the environment and innovation. Specifically, COVAP submitted three projects to the ANICE awards. First was its innovative tri-generation plant, which allows its industries –including its meat transformation center– to be self-sufficient in their electrical energy supply, contributing to the cooperative’s sustainable development.
Second was the plan to create a biogas plant, one of the circular economy projects that COVAP set as a challenge in 2020 as part of its commitment to improving environmental sustainability. This plant will process its own organic waste, generating refined fuel (biomethane) to self-supply electricity to its cogeneration plant.
Finally, COVAP is developing the Life Render project to control the carbon footprint –financed by the European Commission– which measures the impact of CO emissions on primary production. COVAP will form part of this project as one of the cooperatives with the greatest impact in the sector and will contribute toward launching different actions that will help reduce the carbon footprint, and in turn reduce GHG emissions (greenhouse gases).
COVAP was founded over 60 years ago in Pozoblanco, Cordoba with a clear objective: to improve the income and quality of life of farmers through the transformation and marketing of their meat and dairy products, guaranteeing quality from the very source. Today, COVAP has become the leading top-level cooperative in Spain, with more than 2,500 active members, most with farming activity concentrated in the Valley of los Pedroches, Valley of la Serena and Valley of la Alcudia. Grounded in values such as integrity, effort, quality and excellence, the Cooperative has been a clear example of its commitment to the economic and social development of the Los Pedroches region and to the livestock production of its members.
All companies are currently facing a strategic challenge: the commitment to sustainability in the value chain. At COVAP, this commitment is already a reality thanks to the creation of the COVAP model, a consumer-focused agri-food model that covers every step in the value chain: preservation of the unique rural ecosystem of the Dehesa, agriculture, animal feed, livestock, industry and marketing. By controlling the traceability of the process, it can offer consumers a sustainable product of the highest quality.