It has been almost ten years since the chocolate company Rapanui achieved success with its famous Franuí chocolates, raspberries dipped in chocolate. A sweet that is now on its way to conquer Europe. And, to achieve this, it has chosen Alcàsser (Valencia) as its base of operations outside the borders of the Argentinian Patagonia. It is here where they have been producing Franuí for the foreign market for some months now, with the aim of expanding this sweet around the world.
It was at the end of 2020 when this family business landed in Spain with its factory in the Valencian municipality.
Facilities capable of producing 24 million ice cream cups a year of its ‘star’ chocolates. Although the company is dedicated to chocolates and ice creams, its Valencian plant will focus on the manufacture of this sweet, which consists of a raspberry covered in two layers of chocolate. There are two variants: Franuí with white and milk chocolate and another wrapped in white and dark chocolate. A novel product that is stored frozen, but can be eaten at room temperature.
With an investment of 3.5 million euros, the factory has 3,500 square metres. From June, the company plans to step on the accelerator to speed up its expansion and cross borders.
Three years ago we started to set up the factory in Valencia”, Fenoglio explains. In these almost five months of operation, the facilities have been mainly dedicated to serving the national market through chains that already sell this sweet such as Carrefour, El Corte Inglés gourmet, Spar and Glovo.
Why Valencia? “It met all the conditions we needed”, says Leticia Fenoglio. The idea is to supply Europe, Canada and the American market from their fortress in Alcàsser. From their factory in Argentina, they want to “attack” the Latin American market and from Valencia, the rest of the world with these chocolates.
They are already in negotiations with distributors in the USA and Germany and in Italy, they will start selling this sweet this month through the delivery platform Glovo. In Spain, too, they want to expand their points of sale and have also started talks with different distribution chains. In Argentina, they also sell Franauí on the Horeca platform, and they intend to do the same in Spain once they recover from the hard blow of the health crisis. However, they have no plans to open their own shops.
