A farm of your own
The future of Manuel Maldonado linked to the pasture materializes with the purchase of his own farm in 2014. The Iberian pigs, carefully selected, are purebred* and selected lineage. Iberian pigs are raised extensively, they are fed in the open air with fruits from the pasture such as acorns, grasses, roots and tubers and, in the less fertile months, with an exclusive mixture of local cereals.
*The racial purity of the Maldonado pigs is confirmed by individual DNA analysis carried out by Molecular Genetics researchers from the University of Córdoba – Spain
The obsession
Ibéricos Maldonado arises from a healthy obsession: that of Manuel Maldonado in interpreting the Extremaduran pasture.
Raised among meats and sausages, the founder of Ibéricos Maldonado was born in Alburquerque (Badajoz), the quintessential Iberian cradle, and the town where the firm that bears his family name is located.
In 1992, the young Manuel founded together with his father, the butcher Sabas Maldonado, the firm of ham and Iberian products, an artisan company with which to show the world the authenticity of the products of the area.
The germ
The family butcher shop was a good school for the son of Sabas. In the 1960s and 1970s, butcher shops in rural areas did not deal with distributors. The butchers themselves did the work of scouts to identify the pigs that they later wanted to market. Accompanying his father was Manuel Maldonado acquiring knowledge, and in the butcher’s workshop he began to forge his legend as an Iberian curer, either making sausages or curing Iberian ham.
interpreter of the dehesa
The Iberian pig has been an inhabitant of the pasture since time immemorial. The ecosystem of the meadow itself has shaped its morphology: pig and environment share origin. The exquisite care with which Manuel Maldonado preserves the countryside and ensures the breeding of the free-ranging pigs is the result of empirical research sustained over time.
The observation of animals, their evolution and their environment make up Manuel Maldonado as an interpreter of the pasture. A clear honor, and a firm responsibility.
Maldonado gives flora and fauna everything they need, and animals and meadows more than repay the care received.
The pigs are raised in large spaces of 6-10 hectares per specimen, a luxury of nature that the interpreters of the pasture guard for subsequent generations.