- The Maule Euskalduna Guesthouse has been working for years with the products of the small producers of houses in Zubero, and when they bought a building in front of the hostel in the capital, he proposed to the same growers: why not open the point of sale of nearby producers in it? “A group of motivated growers began to come together in 2022 to think about how to create the store,” says Amaia Costa, the project’s animator. The group of farmers immediately contacted the Association of Domestic Producers of the Basque Country, since the association had previous experience in similar projects in the North. After two years, the Xüxenka store opened its doors in December.
The two-year process carried out by the project promoters has been divided into three main phases. “The first point was to determine what they wanted, what the values and criteria of the project are, and to make the team work collectively well,” says Costa. Eleven Zubero farms have joined the store management team, but in addition to their projects, they also offer some twenty other farms on the site. “Being a producer house is one of the agreed bases, that if it is a transformation, it is the producer himself who transforms its raw materials,” he explains.
In addition to the fact that the members of the project are farms in Zubero, almost all of them also have some kind of label. “Some of them are in the Idoki sormarka, they are in the other biological production of Ainitz, or they are part of EHKOlektibo...”, says the animator. The criteria have also been respect for the seasons and the outdoor breeding of animals, as well as the existence of human-sized farms. Once the bases and values of the project were determined, the next phases were an economic study focused on the viability of the store, the elaboration of the legal part and the adaptation of the Maule building. The site has been rented.
Open since December
The store’s shifts have been filled by growers in December, but starting in January a part-time worker is also working in Xüxenka. “We open the store from Tuesday to Saturday in the morning,” says Costa. The store allows growers to sell their products directly and the consumer to fill the shopping basket with sustainable local products. “Vegetables and fruits, pork, axuria, goat meat, dairy products, honey, reximents and medicinal plants...”, they have everything in the Maule shop.
Due to its short two-month journey, the project is having a good response and the promoters are satisfied. “Subsequently, the growers who have started the project remember to organize the animations and do the pedagogy, but they go little by little. At the moment, the focus is on the store,” he said.