From making noodles to being the kings of cookies: the odyssey of the Cuétara brothers

Laura hasn't eaten TostaRica cookies for ten years because she has celiac disease, but she still dreams of them. In fact, they're still her favorite cookies. They're also her husband, Joan's, favorite cookies. On the day of the wedding, when the guests sat down at the table, they found a little box with lots of little gifts. Among the surprises inside was a package of TostaRica cookies personalized with the silhouette of the photo from the day he proposed to her. "They're cookies that bring back very good memories," they confess to the couple.CompaniesLike them, the buttery flavor and crunchy texture of TostaRica cookies evokes nostalgia in many children born after 1975, the year they arrived in Catalan supermarkets. The brand is aware of this, and that's why it has long offered a service to personalize cookies for special occasions like Joan and Laura's.

Now, while TostaRica products evoke memories for this segment of consumers, other products such as Artiach boxes, María Cuétara cookies, and Cuétara assortments stir the memories of other generations. Today, all these products are part of a single catalog: that of Cuétara, one of the major players in the giant Adam Foods, which also controls La Piara, Phoskitos, Carlit, and Aneto, among others. In 2024, the group had a turnover of €400 million, and Cuétara is present in fifty countries. But where did the brand come from?

The journey to Mexico

The story of Cuétara begins at the beginning of the 20th century, in the middle of the lush Liébana Valley, in Cantabria. It was there that brothers Juan and Florencio Gómez Cuétara were born. In 1906, they and four other siblings embarked for Mexico in search of a better future. They survived the Mexican Revolution, opened a store, and scraped by until, in 1932, they founded their first company: a soup pasta factory called La Espiga.

Just three years later, in 1935, that small company refocused and renamed Galletas Gómez Cuétara. With the start of cookie production, they quickly achieved success: so much so that by 1945 they had already ventured to open a second factory in Veracruz. The brothers attempted to emulate their South American success in Spain. In 1946, Juan and Florencio returned to Santander. A year later, they were the owners of a new company, Cuétara Hermanos, born after purchasing a small local cookie factory. In 1951, the new brand cut the ribbon on a large production plant in Reinosa, from which truckloads of the recipes that had made them so famous in Mexico began to roll out. In Spain, the venture also paid off.

In the 1960s, Cuétara expanded throughout Spain. In 1964, with factories in several locations and a notable presence in Spanish homes, it opened its Villarejo de Salvanés plant, which remains one of the company's most important in Europe. In the 1970s, the brand made its international leap with a new factory in Portugal, and in the 1980s, the founders passed the reins to the second generation. In 1985, Cuétara celebrated its half-century of existence.

Change of hands

In 2001, Cuétara took a giant step forward and merged with SOS Arana Alimentación. This move led to the creation of the SOS Cuétara Group, a conglomerate that combined biscuits with products such as rice, oil, and preserves. This move marked the beginning of a new era for the brand, which grew in sales and distribution but lost the family-owned character of its origins. In 2008, in the midst of the group's restructuring, the biscuit division was sold to Nutrexpa, the Catalan group that created Cola Cao, Nocilla, and Phoskitos. The company attempted to revitalize the brand.

In 2014, Nutrexpa was divided into two new companies: Idilia Foods – with Cola Cao and Nocilla– and Adam Foods, which came under the control of the Ventura family and took over cookie brands such as Cuétara and Artiach. Since then, Cuétara has been part of this group, which has focused on keeping the brand's historic legacy alive while adapting it to new consumer trends.