The sales of a small Valencian company have gone through the roof thanks to a far from original invention: the orange squeezing machine. Zumex, a company equipped with industrial machines that signed a deal with Mercadona last year, has closed 2016 with a turnover of around 20 million Euros and with distributors in more than one hundred countries.

In addition to Mercadona, which has become one of its main customers, the company has grown strongly outside the Spanish market. With just 77 workers, international sales represent 90% of the turnover, with a significant boost in the United States, France and the Middle East.

Zumex was founded more than 30 years ago in Valencia and has closed 2016 with a sales growth of 33%. Over the last two years, it has gone from a turnover of 13 million to the current 20 million Euro.

It started with small orange squeezing machines, but the profits of the group were reinvested in new machines that achieved increasing speed and capacity to squeeze the fruit.

The development was successful and the industrial design of the machines has been introduced to bars and cafes across Spain. The company has even managed to introduce them in international chains, such as McDonalds and Starbucks.

Patented squeezing
The company has designed an original and patented squeezing system. The oranges enter the machine, wher they are cut in half. Each part of the fruit is squeezed simultaneously and the shells are then disposed of in a container.

In older versions, the juice was in contact with the orange, but with the outward rotation of the shell, the juice falls directly into the container without contact with the orange peels, which have waxes.

With their launch in Mercadona, the squeezing machines have become more popular and the supermarket chain has introduced some innovations. "Mercadona has helped to increase the turnover, but growth has been mostly recorded on markets like France, the US or the Middle East," explains Victor Bertolín, CEO and sole manager of the company.

Zumex has subsidiaries in the United States, Mexico, the UK and France, and the company has now started focusing on new machines that produce shakes and juices from various fruits. Smoothies are currently trendy, so this could help give a further boost to the firm in 2017.