From Spain to Venezuela
José Luis Merino brings to Venezuela the technical and practical knowledge of Spanish farming, with a clear idea: to strengthen the country’s agricultural sector.
The Group
From Spain to Venezuela in 1974, and from a single animal feed plant to an agro-industrial group that today drives Venezuelan producers forward.
Grupo Merino is an Ibero-American group that over fifty years has covered the whole agrifood chain, link by link. Today it puts that experience to work on two fronts: in Venezuela, on the growth of the producer; from Spain, on export fruit for the European market.
- 1974Founded
- 2Countries of operation
- 4Business units
Milestones
Building the chain
1974 to 2000
Mersan is born
The group’s first business unit: manufacturing, marketing and distribution of balanced animal feed. It is still the centre of everything that came after.
Roots in Spain
Santa Clara de Arriba starts producing on the lower Guadiana. Spain becomes the other half of the operation, and around that farm the others were added, year after year, up to today’s 300 hectares.
A conglomerate
Farming and poultry integration join the portfolio, and what was a feed company takes shape as a business conglomerate.
From a company to a group
Every link in the process
The group comes to cover the entire production process, from the field to the consumer. That journey, made link by link, is the experience it works with today.
Expansion and modernisation
The group’s infrastructure is expanded and modernised, with an eye on producing more and better.
Putting the experience to work
From 2018 to today
Engineering of its own
IGM is born. The group designs and builds its own infrastructure: engineering, procurement and construction of agro-industrial projects, with its own team.
The producer at the centre
The group modernises its operation and focuses fifty years of experience on one goal: that small and medium-sized Venezuelan producers find in one place the feed, the genetics, the technical advice and the equipment they used to have to look for on their own. Granja Santa Clara comes into operation in Cojedes, with six houses and 9,000 m² built, producing the day-old chicks sold through the Mersan stores.
Today
Venezuela
The growth of the producer: feed, genetics, technical advice and the infrastructure behind it, through a network that reaches the whole country.
Spain
Production for Europe: 300 hectares in Ayamonte, Huelva, growing export-grade fruit for the European market.
Four projects under way, all with the same logic: more capacity for the countryside and for the people who work it.
Under development
Ecopark
A 105-hectare industrial estate in Tinaquillo, drawn from a blank sheet so that export-grade agro-industry can operate inside it.
Learn morePlanned for 2029
Second animal feed plant
Inside Ecopark, 20,000 tonnes a month expanding the manufacturing capacity of the group’s first business unit.
Learn more2027 to 2028
A genetics platform
Granja Santa Clara adds its own hatchery, pullets, rabbit and swine genetics and laying quail, to hand over the animal ready to produce.
Learn moreIn planning
A destination on the border
Two hundred and fifty hectares at Agropecuaria del Guadiana, with accommodation, a navigable riverbank and a golf course, between the Costa de la Luz and the Algarve.
Learn more
Contact
We work with producers and customers, with suppliers and commercial partners, and with those looking to invest in agribusiness. Tell us what you need and we will put you in touch with the right business unit.
About the group