Altinco, three decades watching over a more sustainable agriculture

When we go shopping, we pay more and more attention to food labels. A gesture that is common today, but which thirty years ago almost no one considered. The concern for the origin of products, the way they are grown, and their environmental impact was just beginning to make headway. In 1994, coinciding with the creation of the Catalan Council of Organic Agricultural Production (CCPAE), Altinco was born, a company from Mollerussa that was a pioneer in the development of natural-origin solutions for agriculture. Today, integrated into the MatHolding-CERESTIA group, that innovative commitment has earned it the Rural Award at the FAR Awards.

Founded by two chemists, the company made a turn in agriculture by manufacturing natural biostimulants for agricultural crops at a time when organic farming was a minority. Based in Mollerussa, Altinco has built its business model around research, innovation, and the use of natural-origin substances to protect crops and improve their productivity.

Cerestia is MatHolding's proposal to drive the future of agriculture through integrated, sustainable, and innovative solutions, the result of the joint experience of IQV and Altinco (plant health), Regaber (precision irrigation), TerraNostra (farm transformation), and VEGGA (digitalization). The group offers a global response to the needs of the field and, through Altinco, contributes to facing the challenges of a sector increasingly conditioned by climate change and the need to produce more food with less environmental impact. In this context, biostimulants play a key role, as they help plants better resist environmental stress, especially during episodes of drought and extreme temperatures.

International dimension

What started as a commitment to agriculture with fewer residues is now part of this industrial group with family shareholding of international scale. Altinco does not limit itself to just marketing agricultural products, but also develops its own formulations, combining chemical knowledge, applied research, and industrial production.

Last year, the company launched an insecticide suitable for organic farming for which it holds the patent. It is a contact insecticide formulated with 20% paraffin oil. It is designed to combat pests such as aphids, psyllids, and whiteflies, and is an example of how the company has dedicated its efforts to finding alternatives to conventional treatments.

Altinco has two main lines of business: one for the care and protection of crops against pests and the other for biostimulants to optimize nutrient absorption to achieve better harvests. The formulations, furthermore, combine laboratory research with field trials.

With two branches in Morocco and Colombia and a network of more than 200 distributors in Europe, Africa, and America, the company has certifications related to quality management, the environment, and research and development, which guarantee its commitment to agriculture and the environment.

A sustainable project

Altinco bet on natural products for agriculture when the sector was still dominated by conventional chemical solutions and three decades later, that pioneering bet has become a strategic line for the agricultural industry.

Since September 2025, Altinco, led by Joan Minguella, has been part of MatHolding, the Catalan industrial group chaired by Pau Relat, with more than 90 years of history and specialized in solutions for agriculture and water management. The group acquired 100% of Altinco to integrate it into CERESTIA, its agricultural division. The operation represents an economic and business boost that allows for strengthening research and innovation, expanding production capacity, and accelerating the international expansion of Altinco and the group of companies in the division.

Sustainability has always been one of Altinco's pillars, with a commitment to protecting the environment while also looking after the well-being of people. So that filling the shopping basket is also an act of trust, with the peace of mind of knowing that, from the field to the table, food has been grown with treatments that respect the environment and contribute to safer and more sustainable nutrition.