Producer Real Conservas
The oldest artisan conservas company in Galicia.
Real Conservas, or the Royal Spanish Canning Company, was founded by the current owner’s great-grandfather José Peña, who first started canning fresh seafood on the edge of the docks at Cambados in 1920. The original factory is now a museum celebrating the local fishing fleet.
Real Conservas aims for nothing short of perfection. Peña’s great-grandson still visits the wharfs several times a week – usually at three or four in the morning when the boats start coming in – to purchase the best raw produce on offer. He’s been doing this so long that he claims to be able to taste the difference between cockles from each beach in the area: salty ones from here, meatier ones from there…
Once the seafood returns to the Real Conservas factory, it’s cleaned and packed by hand, then cooked in the tin with the simplest local ingredients: olive oil, salt, lemon, bay. The whole process never takes longer than a few hours.
The Region Galicia
