Success stories

Íñigo Bidauzarraga is a young entrepreneur from Spain who wants to take over the main distribution of vegetables for Basque-French supermarkets between Bilbao and the Basque-French area.

When Íñigo returned from Brazil because of Covid19, he was looking for new opportunities to start his own business. A friend of his mentioned the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme, so he drew up his business plan and decided to find a fresh food company to guide him and give him the opportunity to gain new experience in another country. After 6 months in Corinth, Greece, with his host Penny Vlachou from Feréikos-Helix, he is full of knowledge and has already made his first sale abroad through his own business.

 

During his stay abroad, Íñigo prepared a market study on the snail market in Spain and Portugal. He also made numerous contacts with potential and existing snail farmers by e-mail and telephone. He also made several lists of distributors, supermarkets, wholesalers and gourmet shops from the data he had received through the Greek embassies abroad. He learned how to prepare invoices and the necessary licences for the EU and abroad, and also did several translations of texts on social media websites and of pictures. Penny, his host entrepreneur, was always available to answer his questions and explain how to approach new markets and customers, what to do and what to avoid.

His achievement was that he became familiar with fresh products from the agricultural sector, all the organisational procedures and the main players in the production and distribution processes of an agri-food company. This experience gave Íñigo the opportunity to learn and apply the best practises of the food industry, the most innovative production technologies and sustainability approaches. All these activities helped him to start his own food company, UDABI.