Cerealto has been going from strength to strength. The group manufactures baby food, pasta, biscuits, bread, cakes, pastries, cereals, and gluten-free products, and has expanded its global reach in recent years, with a presence in more than 40 countries. The CEO Magazine spoke to Cerealto Siro Foods CEO Luis Ángel Lopez about his history with the company, why innovation is so important, and where the company is heading in the future.
The CEO Magazine: How has the company grown and expanded in your time as CEO?
Luis: I was the CEO of the company for 10 years, and after that I decided to retire. And after I retired I dedicated my time to growing the company internationally. If I talk about the last stage of my last step in the company, we created the international division of the group, we decided to export our business model that we implemented in Spain with some of our customers. We decided to grow outside in different countries and to select a few countries in the world to build new relationships with a few new customers. We started three years ago from scratch, and last year our turnover was about €70 million, and we now have two factories outside of Spain one in Italy, and one in Portugal. We have about 200 people that joined our project, and we are working on different categories at the same time. We have baby food, pasta, breakfast cereals, biscuits, and pastries, and we launched about 100 new products in the market last year.
What was your professional background prior to your current role?
I started in a biscuit company the leading biscuit company in Spain. After that, I came to Siro in 2000, and I was the managing director of the company for 10 years. I helped to build the business model and developed the company. We went from a turnover of €80 million to about €500 million in that time. That was my background in the Siro group. After that, I became the CEO of the international part of the company, and for the past three years I have been a member of the board for Grupo Siro, and a member of the company’s foundation, which will be the owner of the company in the future as it is the decision of the owners to leave the company to the foundation. I studied psychology originally, a long time ago.