Asador restaurant is preparing to launch a stake menu and serve the famous Grup Viñas beef in large quantities. A representative of the restaurant recently visited Grup Viñas factory in Vic, near Barcelona, and signed an agreement with the company on regular supply of fresh beef to Armenia.

Asador founder Arsen Hovhannisyan has talked to GastroVino about the new menu and shared with us some details about his visit to Grup Viñas.

Regular supply of fresh meat

Asador never fails to provide a wide range of seafood dishes, but the stakes menu has been an issue in terms of consistency – sometimes it is impossible to order high-quality local meat in the quantity that we need. Another problem is that we buy great meat from certain farmers and the next batch from the same farmers lacks quality. So, we need to enlarge our stakes menu in order to secure more choices for our patrons.

Something other than local and Russian

In Armenia, you can get either local or Russian meat. Armenia does not import a lot from traditional stake supplier countries. At Asador, we also used either Armenian or Russian beef and had some Grup Viñas meat as well. We ordered the company’s products online but decided to expand the partnership and organize regular supply after my visit to Barcelona.

The meat will be imported by air, which means it is going to get here quickly, so we’ll have shipments of fresh meat every week.

Why Grup Viñas?

Grup Viñas is one of the largest meat producers in Spain, specializing in beef. It is a family business and the current management is the third generation operating the company.

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Arsen Hovhannisyan at Grup Viñas factory | Image by: Asador

They have their own cattle farm and work with different farms in Catalonia as well. Grup Viñas feeds its cattle with special fodder that ensures the particular taste and quality of the meat. The company slaughters young animals for meat, which is why its produce is more juicy and less fatty. Grup Viñas has different breeds: Charolais, Limousin, Holstein.

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Grup Viñas factory | Image by: Asador

The Grup Viñas factory works with the latest equipment and provides all kinds of services from slaughter to packaging. The meat is sterilized at every stage, but no artificial sunstances are involved. All stages of product are interconnected, so if a piece of meat is of poor quality, the company can easily find out which farmer provided it and work towards improving the quality.

Taste depends on the cut

Grup Viñas’ experts work with different markets and know the profile of each country.

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Grup Viñas products | Image by: Asador

For Asador, the company will supply diaphragm cuts, which sells quite well. We are going to have churrasco (side) cuts of the length we want as well and some alternative cuts which maintain the high quality despite being more affordable.

Amalie Khachatryan

Photos: Asador