This company, created and directed by women, has been installed in the tax area since 2001 and was the product of an ideas contest by the Consortium in its work to promote business development in the Bay
Cetárea del Sur, S.L, the first company specialized in this sector run by women, is about to come of age. Installed in the tax area of the Free Trade Zone of Cádiz, it is a perfect model of all the phases of entrepreneurship: enthusiasm, dedication, doubts, hard daily routine and effort to carry out an idea and be able to make a living from it.
This company, the result of the idea and work of Irene Sánchez de Sardi and Ana Parrabano Jiménez in “a labor sector dominated by men”, is dedicated to the marketing and distribution of live crustaceans and mollusks and supplies the best restaurants in Cádiz and Seville from its 320 m2 warehouse in the Cádiz tax area.
Restaurants, fishmongers, markets and some large stores are customers of their products: magnificent specimens of lobsters, lobsters, spider crabs or clams, to name a few, which they carefully “take care of” in a studied habitat made up of pools where the animals remain until its distribution.
Its two leaders and creators, Irene and Ana, were young students at the Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences of the University of Cádiz when they crossed the doors of the Free Trade Zone for the first time to present their project to an ideas competition organized by the Institution. Cádiz.
It was 1998 and three UCA students came together to develop the subject of Business Creation and Viability. That was the embryo of Cetárea del Sur, although “until we reached the final idea we came up with everything from setting up a cinema to producing fish food. There were those who even told us in a rather derogatory tone that it was best for us to dedicate ourselves to setting up an agency and stop scrutinizing swampy terrain.”
Despite the negative comments and obstacles in the process, they continued their journey and obtained the scholarship awarded by the Consortium. The training, support and advice of the entity was key to developing a complete and well-worked project that was recognized by the Free Zone.
Only cetarea created and directed by women
Like any businessman, they have had difficulties and to this we must add that "we are the only cetarea created and directed exclusively by women, which in its beginning meant a revolution for certain sectors but not for the one we were targeting, since no one wanted to sell to us."
Everyday life is hard with a lot of physical work and they point out that “we had to show that we could carry out tasks inherent to the activity that are quite hard. Earning the respect of our competitors, clients and suppliers required an extra effort.”
But reward. They say they feel satisfied with what they have done and what they have achieved, with their entrepreneurship, with their Business career, with their work in which they have had to learn about biology, about the living conditions of crustaceans and mollusks, and their habitat. And they were awarded for their good work in 2009 with an award from the UCA Entrepreneurs Chair, which they both proudly display in their small office.
Because the 320 m2 warehouse is already becoming small, even more so when they are studying a new line of the project that will provide them with a greater professional horizon and will also create new space needs.
Meanwhile, they continue with their day-to-day work full-time and with the Christmas campaign coming up. “All the difficulties that we had to solve showed us that the capacity for perseverance and discipline acquired both by nature and education as well as by training have been and will continue to be of capital importance on the path undertaken,” they conclude, recalling that the support of Zona Franca was fundamental in its beginnings and in every trajectory.
