95% of the saffron produced in Spain is from Castilla-La Mancha and 55% of it originates in the province of Albacete.
The president of the Albacete Provincial Council, Santi Cabañero, has held a working meeting with the president of the Regulatory Council of the Protected Designation of Origin Saffron of La Mancha, Carlos Enrique Fernández, and with the manager of the aforementioned CRDOP, Pedro Manuel Pérez Juan , where, together with the deputy responsible for the Tourism area, Raquel Ruiz, they have been able to talk about the current situation and the perspectives of the work that the Provincial House has been developing around the promotion of this emblematic product that bears the name of Albacete all over the world under a seal of excellence and quality.
A meeting in which they have delved into the work that the Diputación has been carrying out, through its Tourism Service, to serve as a boost to the creation of the La Mancha Saffron Route in the province of Albacete; a project that Cabañero has described as "very exciting" and that the institution outlines from the conviction that "this type of initiative that makes visible the location of a product on a territory and the symbiosis that exists between both, constitutes a tool of revitalization to the territory itself and its people, at the same time that it enriches the promotion and dissemination associated with the product itself”.
A Route that, in any case, will be set in motion and will always be articulated by the City Councils and the Local Action Groups involved in it, as well as by the Regulatory Council of the La Mancha Saffron PDO, asserting its invaluable role in the diffusion, dissemination and defense of everything related to 'red gold' in the territory.
Saffron with PDO from La Mancha is, without going any further, one of the main products of '¿Gustas?': the Gastronomic Guide of the Province of Albacete published by the Provincial Council itself to value each and every one of the products Albacete protected by DOP, IGP and MC quality seals, bringing them to the kitchen through dishes prepared by the best chefs in this land and asserting the treasures that, day by day, have been positioning the province of Albacete as an excellent tourist-gastronomic destination.
The province of Albacete, a benchmark in Spain for the best saffron
But, in addition to being 'a fixture' in all the catalogues, fairs or sectoral congresses with the aim of promotion that have the presence of the Diputación, the provincial institution also works actively with this product through Research (in this case, through the Provincial Agronomic Technical Institute – ITAP-). Likewise, both the president and the deputy have shown their willingness to work on the possibility of creating collaborative ties between the PDO and the Institute of Albacete Studies - IEA -, so that this Organism dependent on the Diputación deepens the deep relationship between saffron and the history of Albacete and its people, within the area that the Institute dedicates to this type of research and dissemination.
Cabañero has put the institution at the service of the CRDO Azafrán de La Mancha to work on everything that can contribute to continue making known (both outside and within the provincial territory) what, without a doubt, is "one of the most valued and with the highest prestige worldwide.
Not in vain, the DOP Azafrán de La Mancha is the only spice of this nature that has, at a national level, this quality recognition. It is a product with an enormous cultural and cultural connotation that is part of the landscape of C-LM and, especially, of the province of Albacete.
95% of the saffron produced in Spain is from Castilla-La Mancha and 55% of this, in turn, originates from the province of Albacete (where the DOP has ten hosted bottling companies, some 71 hectares dedicated to cultivation and around 120 agricultural professionals directly linked to this production).
