Garcia de la Cruz Celebrates Women’s Month

(Gerry Furth-Sides) Celebrating Women’s Month with women-founded Garcia de la Cruz! And what could be more feminine than their new Organic Olive Oil Exfoliating Soap and Hydrating Cleansing Soap? We learned that you also need to apply moisturizer after cleansing each and every time! A life (face!)-changing moment. And there is more news!

And in addition to using the classic and still evolutionary skin products, fine diners can also eat García de la Cruz’ new line of nutritious olives, as well as use the company’s extensive line of olive oils plus balsamic vinegar that revitalize skin and hair.

To celebrate the month, García de la Cruz is offering a competition to WIN A TRIP TO SPAIN. Instructions are below on how to enter or go to the Amazing Giveaway Alert posts on the García de la Cruz Olive Oil Facebook and Instagram pages.

The exciting part of this trip in the fall is that it is timed for early harvest, the very thing that makes the olive oil so vibrant and exciting.

This woman-dominated business story begins when  Garcia de la Cruz company was founded in 1872. It came about when Federico Serrano Fernandez-Negrete and his wife Adelaida Fernandez-Cuella inherited a grinding mill. The history of this family business began with the purchase of 300 hectares of land in an area known as “El Cerillo”, which they planted with olive trees.

The mountain range is especially welcoming to crops because it runs north-south so the sun remains shining down all day until it slips over the mountains.

In a country marked by poverty and in which the role of the woman was relegated to the home and domestic chores, Adelaida Fernandez-Cuella took the brave decision to put herself at the head of the business while her husband, a lawyer, dedicated himself to his profession and to the public administration. (See top right photo in montage below)

It was in that primitive grinding mil, – with its mule driven stone, a beam press, ceramic decanters, the harvest in the storehouse – that production of olive oil began in home industry style.

Of the three children in the marriage, it was daughter Guadalupe Serrano Fernandez-Cuellar who took charge of the family business. On the death of her husband in 1931, she took over the management of all the family properties. The situation for the family was affected by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

After the war shutdown, Adela Aguilar Serrano, daughter of Guadalupe, restarted the grinding mill in 1945 and, in 1950, they modernized the system of production.

Adela Aguilar Serrano married Francisco Garcia de la Cruz. They had twin sons, born in 1933, Manuel and Francisco, who took over the company in 1975.

Demand grew and with it the need to expand the business, and in 1980 the grinding mill was moved from the centre of the town to its present site at 23 Reyes Catolicos Street. By 1998, the year in which Francisco Garcia de la Cruz retired, thousands of olive trees had been planted which guaranteed the finest quality olive, harvested with care and attention, for the olive oil production.

With the arrival of the new century, Fernando and Eusebio Garcia de la Cruz, the fifth generation of the family, took charge of the business. 

With over 145 years experience in the business, Aceites García de la Cruz, has the capacity to export to over 40 countries across the five continents. USA, Japan, China, Italy and France are its main markets. 

And finally another opportunity to go to Spain! This offer is for summer and fall.