Tomás Fuertes recibe el Reconocimiento de FIAB por su trayectoria empresarial

Well, these recognitions are accepted with great joy and humility, but they should come earlier because it's in the beginnings when you need the enthusiasm to carry a project forward. Authorities, ladies and gentlemen, FIAR committee, I deeply appreciate the attention you have given to Grupo Fuertes. On behalf of ElPozo Alimentación, the most representative company of the group, receiving this recognition truly moves me personally, it fills me with emotion, because you can see the effort and the passion an entrepreneur puts into their project has its compensations—not only economic or technical or social ones, but a human recognition that values things. I believe there are many companies in Spain deserving of this prize, with more or less dimension. But on our part, besides expressing this gratitude, I would like to point out—and precisely having here a minister of recognized prestige and conduct in her career—but above all I would like to make an observation as a practitioner in the food world, and specifically regarding personalized nutrition. In fashion, size and style have already been solved—the person has resolved that issue they might have if they had an inadequate size or a style they didn't like. But food is something very important. You have to consider that a person consumes 1,000 kilos every year, between solids and liquids, and it is extremely important not only for health but also for well-being and longevity. I believe the food world needs to be given more importance than it already has. It doesn't help our instinct—when we have an appetite, we have to fill the fuel tank. But behind that, we have here precisely a professor, in this case a doctor who will speak to us deeply about the technical aspects of nutrition. But I, modestly as an entrepreneur, think we need to clarify and spread more among the general public the concept of personalized food. I believe that all of us today have a fairly high level of culture. Man has already stepped on the moon, Mars—science has developed a great deal. But one of the most important things, where human life is at stake, is trying to manage those 70,000 kilos that a person who lives 70 years consumes through the digestive tract, and to do it well, measured and wisely. Now, populism is trying to impose undocumented criteria about certain foods. You have to consider that all the hundreds of thousands of foods authorized by health authorities, all of them, without leaving out a single one, are good for human consumption. All of them. Now, you have to specify which ones in quantity and quality each body needs. The human genome intervenes, human metabolism, DNA, age, exercise, composition—I believe everything has value, and a human being is worth even more. So I believe that by their own instinct, people try to take care of themselves. But speaking in general terms, the responsibility we food-producing companies have—we already worry about making healthy products and products suited to current nutritional demands. But the individual, the person, also has to take care and consult qualified professionals—endocrinologists and others—to study their own needs according to their age. This is also very important because every ten years you can notice an evolution in the development of human nutrition. Therefore, I believe it's time to encourage everyone to center culture also—each person selfishly on themselves—so they can know their intake of more or less of the foods that truly suit them, to avoid causing illness or, on the contrary, excess. The person has three times the voracity they need—if they need 1,000 calories, they don't stop eating until they've had 3,000. Of course, nature is very clever—it makes the person store 2,000 calories in reserve in case they don't eat tomorrow. But there is something very important, which is for this culture to develop as part of being human. We realize that right now there are about 7.6 billion mouths that have to be fed every day with food, with those approximately 333 kilos between solids and liquids. 7.6 billion, but also every year approximately 80 million more mouths join, net of deaths and births. I believe these are data that can be more or less exact. What does this mean? That we who work in food and FIAR, as the mother of all of us, all food entrepreneurs, have to bear in mind that we are in a critical moment. Now, the word innovation seems like we're going to invent the world, but food has existed throughout the entire life of humans. Primitive people had stomachs and had to digest a type of food. Right now, I believe that this culture I am provoking from here—that it be developed through the media, in schools, and elsewhere—so that it is truly given the importance it deserves. And another important thing is that they don't demonize foods indiscriminately, populism saying this is good for the liver, this is good for that—truly there should be a more established culture in the world of food. Therefore, I believe the future of food—from primitive humans or primitive people to five thousand years from now—will always be the digestive system. Many have said that a pill could replace food, yet the digestive system is designed so that you have to take in a certain amount of solids and liquids for your organism to truly develop and function. That happens through culture. Nothing more. Thank you all very much.