– We’ll keep on talking about products, but in this case we’ll move up a bit, specifically to the Camprodon area. Do you know what Girona Excel·lent is? It’s an agri-food quality seal awarded by Girona Provincial Council and the Chamber of Commerce to promote producers in the province. In this case we have with us Esther Puig, who’s the Quality Manager at Birba Biscuits.

After so many years how does Birba Biscuits manage to stay in the market and keep innovating in biscuits?

– Well, the secret is in the product itself. We make products with high added value ingredients. They’re natural products, without artificial colouring or preservatives. We have a handcraft process that we’ve stuck to right from when we started out and the whole process is carried out very carefully.

The ingredients we use are very natural, such as olive oil, eggs, fresh butter, hazelnuts, almonds… they are premium quality products.

– Nowadays sugar is something that people worry about a lot and I know that Birba Biscuits has done a lot in this area.

– Yes, that’s right. Although it’s not scientifically proven that appropriate consumption of sugar is harmful, it is true that at Birba Biscuits we’ve recently brought out a line of sugar-free Nuria and Nuria with no added sugar with plums, and we call it that because the only sugar in the biscuits comes from the plums. The sugar-free biscuits are called that because they have less than 0.5 g and come with chocolate and cocoa nibs.

– How long has Birba Biscuits been in business?

– Since 1893, and we’ll soon be 125 years old.

– And you keep on innovating, because one of the things that sometimes companies say is that “we make a product and we only do this”. But in your case you continue to innovate, as for example with cocoa nibs.

– We take the view that all the new products we bring out must have natural ingredients, and in this case as it’s a sugar-free product we needed something that would give it something else. Cocoa nibs are pieces of cocoa seed which have been toasted… The seeds retain all the flavour and aroma of chocolate and are also rich in antioxidants, vitamins, magnesium… They have high nutritional value.

– Well, in this case Girona Excel·lent is this Quality seal awarded by Girona Provincial Council as I said, and in terms of helping local producers, I guess you’ve seen a big change with this seal.

– It’s kind of getting recognition for our name. The thing is that in Catalonia we have our name, but in terms of exporting we have the accreditation.