There are businesses that sell products. And there are others that, almost without intending to, end up also selling a way of understanding life. Conserves Llopart, in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, clearly belongs to this second category.
Since 1948, this historic establishment located in the Collblanc neighborhood, on Doctor Ferran i Clua street, next to the market, has been popularly known as “the can shop” and has made quality, craft, and personal treatment its reason for being. And so is its aesthetic, totally unmistakable: colorful, exuberant, almost baroque. Shelves full to the top with cans of all sizes, lifelong labels, products difficult to find in other shops, and a warmth that does not exist in large supermarkets.
There is a bit of everything: select preserves, seafood, olives, cheeses… And conversations, many conversations, that hide “personal stories and secrets much more powerful than TV3 soap operas”, says the new owner of the business, Toni Alcaraz. And it is that, a few months ago, this business experienced a historic change.
From the world of advertising to the counter of a historic shop
Less than a year ago, Conserves Llopart opened a new stage. Marga Llopart, daughter of the founders and heir to the family business, decided to transfer it. But she was looking for someone who understood that what she was leaving behind was much more than a shop.
The person who took over was Toni Alcaraz, a professional who until recently worked as an advertising creative and who decided to completely change his life. “For some time I felt that I no longer fit into the world of advertising,” explains Alcaraz. “I needed to do something more tangible, more real; a project of my own where I could truly get involved. When they told me about the transfer of Conserves Llopart, I came, I saw what this house meant and I understood that behind it there was something very special,” he says.
The change, he admits, has been radical. From selling ideas to selling preserves. From agency meetings to the counter. But he assures that he has found an unexpected satisfaction there.
Prescribers of cans
“When I recommend a product, I don't do it with the will to place it, but convinced that it will please. This is the difference. Here trust is sacred”, he states. “I myself taste everything. We cannot recommend something we don't know. That would be disrespecting the client”, adds the current owner.
Furthermore, Alcaraz is not alone. He has the support of his wife, Laura, who is very involved in this new adventure and, above all, with a team of workers who accumulate many years of experience and who know the business as their home. However, this former publicist has decided to maintain the name, the aesthetics, and all the workers.
“People here don't come just to buy, they come for you to guide them,” explains Rosa Escrig, one of the most known faces of the house and worker of the establishment for 44 years. “Many come in and ask you the key question: ‘You, in your home, would you take it?’ And that forces you to be honest,” she states. This is, probably, one of the secrets of the longevity of the business: trust.
Quality above the brands
At Conserves Llopart, supermarket brands are not sold, nor is the easy claim sought. The criterion is another. “We seek quality, not brand”, says Escrig. For this reason, they buy product for entire campaigns. Now it's asparagus' turn, they ask for samples of it, they taste them, they compare batches and, when they find the product that responds to the house's level of exigency, they make a large purchase of it that allows them to have stock for months. With cockles, seafood and many other preserves, they follow the same process.
It's an almost artisanal way of working, based on product knowledge and a simple maxim: if it's sold, it must first have been tasted.
A shop, a warehouse and a small universe of its own
What the client sees when they enter the store is only a part of the business. Behind there is a large warehouse that functions as the logistical heart of Conserves Llopart, from where they supply product to restaurants in l'Hospitalet and Barcelona. In fact, it is what allows them to have around 70,000 products between cans and other preserves and 790 different references.
Among aisles full of boxes and infinite shelves of cans and references, activity is constant and coordination does not have more automation than that of Ferran Bartolomé, another worker of the house whom they define as a genius who takes care of all the products, with devices devised by himself to pass through the narrow alleys inside the warehouse. "Here we don't have any magic system or any artificial intelligence," they explain half-jokingly. "We have people who know the business and know exactly where everything is," he claims.
This accumulated knowledge is one of the great assets of the house. Part of the staff has been working there for decades, and this has allowed to maintain a very defined identity, even in a moment of change like the one the business has experienced in recent months. Alcaraz has it clear: "I have been the last to arrive. Those who really know how this house beats are them. My role is to learn, listen to them and make sure that the essence is not lost".
In the team there are also other proper names like Anna, at the counter, and who knows the shop's customers best; Alicia, at the head of the administrative management; Sergio, in public service and the daily operation of the shop and Walter, in charge of deliveries.
Maintain the legacy in difficult times
In times of inflation, changes in consumption habits and with a fishing sector increasingly affected by climate change, maintaining a business like this is not easy. "The sea has changed a lot. There are products that arrive worse each time or cost more to find. But we continue choosing the best possible produce. We don't lower the level," admits Escrig.
At Conserves Llopart there are olives, sardines, cheeses, cockles and hundreds of more products, all well preserved. But what also keeps this house alive is the lifelong trade, where it seems that time stops and haste does not enter. And it seems that, for now, this has its future assured, because, as its new owner humorously says, resorting to the Spanish expression ‘dar la lata’, they have for many more years.
