Juan Ramón Olivero, a native of Tinajo, is the owner of La Nueva Polar, a family business in Lanzarote, which after 22 years is still going strong and does not grow more because it does not want to. In the factory are Olivero and his daughter, while his wife takes care of the invoices. Apart from the family, they only have one delivery man.
In an interview with the Radio Lanzarote program Más de Uno Gourmet Oliveros explains how the company works and how its ice creams are made in seven flavors and its popsicles in eight varieties.
- How did you take over La Nueva Polar?
I started working at the La Nueva Polar factory as a delivery man at 29 years old. When the owner retired, I bought his share.
- How is ice cream made?
We do it the old way, all wrapped manually, the ice cream is a little harder. We make it with skimmed milk powder with vegetable fat.
- What has changed in these 22 years in Lanzarote and in your way of making ice cream?
The way of making ice cream has not changed, but with more population, much more is sold.
- What flavors are there in the ice creams?
We always have strawberry, vanilla and turrón. 6 years ago I started with gofio ice cream and it sells very well. Now we have chocolate in a cup, which I used to make in a tub.
In a tub we have bubble gum with cloud, which children like a lot, mint with chocolate, vanilla with chocolate...
I also make blackberry, Indian fig and pitaya ice cream but I don't sell them, I make them for myself or give them away.
- Why don't you sell them?
I haven't considered selling them because we are on an island, and it is not a capital. We are a little limited. For example, when buying containers, you have to order a minimum of 10,000 and something like that, so if it doesn't work out... Also, the factory is in La Vegueta, which is not an industrial area to grow much.
- And what flavors are there in the popsicles?
We make 8 flavors of ice: strawberry, orange, lemon, chocolate, milk, anise, mint and bubble gum, which is blue.
- Who are part of your team?
We have a delivery man and in the factory it's my daughter and me. My wife takes care of the invoices.
- Do you do promotion or marketing?
I am incredibly lucky that customers call me.
- Some businessmen when listening to you will think that you could grow much more...
I'm going to tell you an anecdote. I usually go every November 30th, for San Andrés, to Tenerife because I'm invited there to a party and I take about 300 ice creams each time.
Last year a man who had never been to the party before tried the ice cream sandwich and said to me: But boy, you haven't gotten rich because you haven't wanted to! This summer he will come to Lanzarote to look for ice cream for himself.
- Where can the ice creams of La Nueva Polar be found?
In the Spar supermarkets and in the Hiperdinos. There are also in almost all the small stores. On Sundays we are in the Teguise market.
We also distribute in La Graciosa and Fuerteventura once a week. We started going to Fuerteventura because Hiperdino asked us to, because their customers asked for it.