The investment firm Atitlan, led by Roberto Centeno, son-in-law of Mercadona's president, Juan Roig, and Aritza Rodero, is targeting investment in the agricultural sector. This activity is channeled through Elaia, the firm it created nearly 20 years ago to invest in olive groves.

The company currently also manages investments for Atgro, the fund created by Atitlan in conjunction with Banco Santander, which has already raised €300 million and has set a goal of reaching €500 million in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America.

The executive of the Atitlan firm recently participated in the meeting Agribusiness 2025 organized by APD in Valencia, where he explained that one of the keys to the business is precisely ensuring supply to its major distribution clients for most of the year, with geographic diversification to guarantee that capacity.

Atgro focuses on planting and harvesting trees to produce so-called superfruits and supernuts, for which it already has two major varieties: pistachios in Spain and table grapes in Peru. Elaia's "number one priority" is now to enter the blueberry sector, one of the most profitable fruits. According to its CEO, Ramón Rivera, in this variety of the berry segment, "there are opportunities based on new genetic varieties, which are allowing its cultivation in different geographies and also provide a production window of up to almost 10 months."

The company specializing in irrigated farm management is already present in Peru, one of the largest blueberry-exporting countries in South America, where last year it closed Atgro's first acquisition, with the acquisition of the table grape producer Ecosac.

Hazelnut trees in Chile

It's not the only crop in which the fund created with Santander plans to invest. "We are also looking at hazelnut production projects in Chile," said Rivera, who explains that, based on new varieties and planting them in new areas of that country, "we achieve much higher productivity rates than traditional ones."

Recently, Atitlan and Santander announced that Atgro had already raised €300 million in capital and was negotiating new investments for €125 million. Along with entering these new agricultural products, Atitlan and Elaia are planning to expand with additional table grape assets following the acquisition in Peru.

"We want to expand our investment in table grapes, also by expanding geographically and broadening our production window. We're currently in a window of around 4 or 5 months, and we can extend that window by another 3 months by diversifying our geography," commented Elaia's CEO, who also noted that Peru is a particularly interesting country because the different latitudes between north and south allow for combining different campaigns, and it's well-positioned logistically.

Rivera believes that one of the major trends in the primary sector is genetic research, with the development and licensing of new varieties that are allowing cultivation on previously unviable land and improving productivity. This is one of the responses to another of the sector's major challenges: meteorology and climate change.

3.000 hectares of pistachios in Spain

Elaia was founded in 2007 as a result of an alliance between one of the largest Iberian olive oil producers, the Portuguese company Sovena, a supplier to Mercadona, and Atitlan. After managing 15.000 hectares in Andalusia, Extremadura, Portugal, and Morocco, it was transferred, a transaction that also included the almond orchards it had previously acquired. In 2022, Atitlan's agricultural arm launched into pistachio plantations, which now encompass more than 3.000 hectares in areas of Albacete and Toledo. The other crop it has a presence in Spain is citrus fruits, one of Valencia's agricultural bestsellers, where Atitlan joined the Romu firm.