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Estancia El Rosario
Estancia El Rosario

Nueva Estancia El Rosario S.A is a food & beverages company based out of ruta prov. nº e-66, km. 4,5, La  Cumbre, Córdoba, This is an Argentine manufacturer of food products, mostly known for its alfajores. The specialized Model Establishment on the production of homemade products was founded by Mr. Mauricio Andrei in 1924.

History
Nestled in the Cordoba foothills, Estancia El Rosario opened in 1924 as a jam and biscuit factory and has since evolved into one of the top Alfajor producers in the region. The alfajores are coated with a sweet sugary glaze rather than chocolate, and filled with mixed fruit jams, or dulce de leche. If you spend any time in Cordoba, the estancia, which also offers alfajor making lessons and tours of the factory, is worth a visit. Otherwise, there are several specialty markets that stock them in Buenos Aires.

Estancia EL ROSARIO is located in the province of Cordoba, at 1350 mts above sea level and surrounded by a spectacular landscape of the typical Cordobes mountains. The name of the factory can be traced back approximately to the gatherings of local inhabitants in that place to pray the “Santo Rosario”.

It was the family Johnston, one of the many families of Scottish origin that participated in the construction of the railway, who brought with them typical homemade recipes for the manufacture of Alfajores and Jams; it was also the family Johnston who started in 1870 the production of jams followed by Alfajores for their own consumption and then from/since 1924 it turned into a factory.

The specialized Model Establishment on the production of homemade products was founded by Mr. Mauricio Andrei in 1924.

From that moment the products have been manufactured with these centenarian recipes (jealously kept  as a family secret) that are only passed down from generation to generation in order to guarantee its quality and purity.

Today “Estancia EL ROSARIO” offers a wide variety of products maintaining that homemade essence that has characterized the factory for more than 80 years.

In the beginnings of ESTANCIA EL ROSARIO, its first jams were manufactured in pans made of copper with little capacity and the cooking was carried out/made through fire fueld with wood. Years later, a little boiler was incorporated that was useful to generate vapor and from that moment the system of cooking changed and pans also made of copper started being used but with a system that allows the circulation of vapor for safer cooking of a better quality, this technique is currently used.

The production of alfajores started in 1942 using the typical bakery oven (fueled with wood), the biscuit is cut with moulds, baked in trays while the assemblage, the filling, the covering and the packaging were handmade. With the passing of time, the increasing demand made it impossible to use these ovens and because of that a first line of continuous equipment for the baking was incorporated in that section.

Products
Estancia El Rosario has a great variety of products that consists of Alfajores coated with dulce de leche; fruits (figs, peach, apricots, plums and quince) coated with chocolate; biscuits filled with lemon, dried biscuits coated with sugar and chocolate; puddings with and without fruit, syrups (figs, pumpkins, oranges, etc…), sweets manufactured in harvest season of each fruit (fig, peach, strawberry, apple, tomato, etc), marmalade (quince, orange), jellies (quince, apple, orange) pure honey, dulce de leche (with vanilla extract, with nut, with almond) goat´s dulce de leche, candies of milk, solid dulce de leche, solid quince jams, collations, small wafers, yerba mate, herbs, virgin olive oil, champignons mushrooms (natural, provencal, spices, escabeche, green vegetables) vegetables in escabeche (eggplant, green bean, pepper, vegetable) heart of artichoke in tomato sauce.

Alfajores
In the undersoil is the oven where the alfajor biscuit is manufactured, which is made up of pure honey (it is used honey from San Marcos Sierras).

The biscuit is located in cylinders. The machine automatically puts dulce de leche through regulators, after that the second biscuit is put automatically. The conveyor belt transports it where the coverage of icing sugar is made. Afterwards, it is put into the oven to dry the coverage and to crystallize the sugar.

The parallel line manufactures the chocolate alfajor.

At first it is exactly the same as the Cordobes alfajor. In the glass cabinet, the coverage of chocolate is made and in the white part of the line it is cooled (to solidify the chocolate).

Everything is gathered up in wire baskets (manually) in order to carry that to the wrapping machine where the alfajor is manually and individually put in the final packaging.

All the process (from the oven to the wrapping machine) lasts 20 minutes; the machine wrapps the alfajores per second and alfajores are preserved for two months in the hermetic packaging.

In eight hours, 60,000 alfajores are approximately manufactured.

Facade of ancient ovens fueled by wood as it was in the beginning.

Alfajores and biscuits are manufactured through the batter, the mixing, the die cutting and the baking of the biscuits as every process of bakery. Other parts of the process are the filling of alfajores with bakery dulce de leche and its completion with a coverage of sugary glace or confectionery as the final presentation with close hermetic packagings made of flexible material.

Long time ago, Estancia El Rosario settled down in a fruit zone where it stocked up on for the production of jams and jellies. It was a calm area in which there was too much room to work in tranquility and it was far away from the village so that the noise of the machinery did not bother the neighbours.

In the beginning the small number of workers was around 20 or 25 in the factory.

The raw material was brought from different places such as Jesús María, Colonia Caroya, Estancia San Miguel, Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Mendoza (from which jars were brought) and fruits were brought by the surroundings.

From the very beginning of Estancia El Rosario, several products were manufactured but these products are nor currently manufactured in the same plant, for example:


 * Jam of raspberry, rhubarb, redcurrant, sweet potato.
 * Jelly of  grapefruit, Marmalade of grapefruit.
 * Grape syrup of mistol.
 * Olives in syrup.
 * Oil of maize.
 * Dry/dried mushrooms.
 * Viscacha in escabeche.
 * Syrup of redcurrant, raspberry, cherry, lemon, strawberry.
 * Liquor of  serrano kumquat in liquor of orange, peperina, egg, peach, mandarin, orange, grape in grappa, muscat grape, liquor guindado extra dry/dried, sweet and serrano, bitter serrano (with herbs), Juice of fruits.
 * Cream and almonds.
 * Jelly of  cayote, squash with lemon taste.
 * Natural peach, natural pineapple.
 * Alfajores of cornflour, small alfajores of nougat.
 * Small snack of anise.
 * Chihuahua biscuits, criollitas (with butter), great variety, biscuit of chocolate.
 * Chunk of glazed strawberry (orange, ackee, fig).

Estancia El Rosario started manufacturing candies of dulce de leche because of the demand of the consumer.

The company had several owners: Johnson family, Andrei, Cisneros Carignani, Eiras, and currently Bello family. During all these years the factory has been expanded but the greatest expansion took place with Bello brothers, former owners until 2018. In this last expansion not only was the structure of Estancia El Rosario expanded but also the machinery. as from 2018 Alan Horwitz has taken over the factory.