11-2012 STAR-K Testimonial: Javier Fernandez, Andean Valley

uh I am the general manager of andian Valley a company who uh is dedicated to the kinoa processing production processing and exportations since 1994 well we are working with Rabbi Goldberg um and star kosher certification since er er the last year and starting in in this year 2012 um when we received the first visit of the star k supervisor well um well we were we are exporting our product organic Royal kinoa grains to a company in United States uh since 1998 and they are um Stark culture certified H for a for many years ago so we decided U with our main client to um certify the product from the origin from the plant from the fields where it is producing so that's why we decided to ask starc certification to be part of us here and cooperate and help with this certification well um we received the um the star k koser supervisor um in the different steps of the the production in the agricultural production of the kinoa crops H we visited U the the seting time which is in August September we visited the the period when the harvesting time uh which is in April May and um we will we was able to present to the supervisor all the steps in this um in the process after this we uh take him to the plant to show how it is uh process the product in the plant how are the operations the cleaning process the washing Etc and H all and to present also all the the the documents and records that we use every day in the processing of our product I think this is a a very important uh aspect and point with this certification and the product that we manage kinoa grains kinoa crops is one of the oldest crops Old oldest products that it is produced in the world and it is produced in our South part of our country in a place where you have more than four 3,500 M over the sea level more than this uh solar r ration very high with in the intensity and also a um a a a salinity in the soil which is done because of the big salt leges that we have all of these aspects made that just the kinoa plants can grow there there's no other crops or other products being produced in this Z it can grow there so this this was one of the main things that we present to the supervisor it is it's impossible that our product can be mixed with other grains with other products with other agricultural products then a uh another important and sensitive thing is that we we are we are just kinoa processors in our plant of processing there's no other grain or other product being produced in our Machinery in our technology so this was also presented there well as as the general manager of this company um um we were H promoting the certifications in this company we are organic certified since 1998 we have we obtained the iso 90001 uh certification last year so this this way way of working gives us the possibility to to receive the supervisor in a better condition because we know and we work with records with traceability and um even if the kosher has their own requirements it was not so difficult for us to comply with because we are used to work with that with that uh today we have we are applying to the koser certification and we have presented all the process and all the traceability records that we have for our product at this time well um the kosher certification gives uh I think two things today it's gives quality the possibility that we can improve our techniques our processings our record systems in order to comply with the requirements in the koser so this improves our quality and also gives H the possibility to acceed to New Markets uh so this gives a better conditions to attack some markets to penetrate some different markets in the world we were very happy to work uh it was very nice to work with the people of Stark because um uh the supervisors the rabi uh always help us in all of our questions in all of our requirements of of information that we have um it was very nice to present all the production from the first step of the Agricultural production to the last process of the loading of the container here in the plant and um it was also very nice to know about the kosher world the kosher certification the kosher way of living um so um it there is it is people that we will receive in our plant anytime we will uh uh what