The company Zayintec presents its vegetables 'With heart and star' to be sold in food chains

Zayintec, a spanish company established on the Science and Technology Park of Almería (PITA), has presented today its vegetables ‘With heart and star’ in a
ceremony framed by the signing of an agreement with Tecnova Technological
Centre in the Headquarters of the PITA (Spain). This agreement will provide reliability to the heart-shaped and star-shaped vegetables developed by Zayintec so that they can be used by the industry, through studies conducted by researchers in the area of Postharvest Technology and Packaging of Tecnova.

Cucumbers and tomatoes have from now an added incentive to their scent and color: the shapes of star and heart in which Francisco Bermudez and Javier Lope have spent years researching from Zayin Technology. In the presentation there has been the manager of the company, Francisco Bermudez, together with the manager of Tecnova TC for the signature of the agreement, accompanied by the general manager of the PITA, Alfredo Sánchez.

Zayintec is currently negotiating with major distribution chains of domestic and
foreign supermarkets, as well as with producers and exporters of the province
of Almeria, who have showed great interest in distributing this product to the
final consumer from their shelves.

The firm located in the PITA works with two business lines: the Garden Amateur
line, also called urban garden line, through which they will soon offer packs
with molds for fruit and vegetables to consumers; and another one based on an
industrial mold allowing large-scale production. «With the first one we provide
the molds directly to the users in order to plant their own vegetables in the
garden. They will be available at specialized stores. With the second line we
talk about expanding the commercialization to vegetable growers to deliver this
evocative product directly to the consumer’s table”, says Francisco Bermúdez,
manager of Zayintec.

The advantages of this mold patented by Zayintec for the agricultural sector are
its low cost, its ease of use, the fact of being a certified material for food use,
having a quick amortization (it does not imply an additional cost in the structure
of greenhouse costs) and implying the introduction to a niche market targeted to
salads of fourth range, haute cuisine and cocktails. «On the occasion of St Valentine’s Day we wanted to present our unique product. Several establishments in Almeria and Madrid will with exhibit their tapas with heart-and-star-shaped cucumbers, as well as mixed drinks in which the cucumber is the leading ingredient», Bermudez explains at the press conference. This innovative product will be served as tapa and in cocktails in the establishment DeVinos and Bibelot (Almería) as well as in romantic salads in the restaurants Faborit (Madrid).

During the last two years Zayintec has been working and developing tests in
its research farms and has obtained very successful results in Alfa Beta and
Dutch-type cucumber. It has also made tests in courgette, tomato (vegetable in
which greater efforts are being done to reach the ideal product), and lime and
lemons for cocktails with heart shape. «In the two latter, the results have been
spectacular, frankly good,» said Bermudez.

The idea of shaping vegetables is not new. Many countries, especially in Asia,
have been working in this field. However, the molds used for this purpose
so far were not suitable for professional use, due to its high cost. «Zayintec
has designed with its Industrial Engineers molds for professional use with
features appropriate to bring the final product to the consumer at a reasonable
cost. For this purpose, it has patented a new mold design made ​of certified
pvc for food use that allows to get a product at costs suitable for large-scale
commercialization «, says the manager of the company.

The agreement signed between Tecnova and Zayintec represents a major
milestone to guarantee the reliability of the heart-and-star-shaped vegetables
sold by Zayintec through research conducted by specialists of Tecnova
Technology Center. Moreover, the agreement includes further actions to be
carried out on technological cooperation, exchange of materials, outreach
workshops as well as R&D projects related to food and agriculture, among
others.

Zayin Technology commercializes its products and services through the
trademark ZAYINTEC. Zayin Technology is a company specializing in knowledge management and development of technological innovations in the field of horticultural seed technology, plant genetics and technology consulting. Its business lines are based on the offer of the following activities: breeding consulting, development of hybrid varieties, sale of Variety rights, consultancy of new information technologies and germplasm management software.

PostScript. Javier López, (Zayinsoft), software engineer, and Francisco Bermudez, (Zayinsoft), executive director.