Our story began in the 1950s, when our founders, José Luis Tejedor and Anastasia Lázaro, at that time teachers in the town of Remondo (Segovia), received hens in thanks for the support classes that they offered the children of the town. Little by little they dedicated more time and effort to these animals, and started a business, opening a poultry company in Fuentepelayo, the town of Segovia where they put down roots and stayed for the rest of their lives.

Year after year, the couple strengthened their commitment to this sector, and made continuous expansions to the business. Additionally, a new generation of the family began to collaborate, helping the company expand into pig breeding. New challenges and adventures were emerging before us!

With many of the children now in the business, we continued this adventure, which became something more than a business project – it was a way of life where excitement, passion and enthusiasm were felt. Into the 1970s, hard work and our experience allowed us to build our first pig farm.

The determination of our Team and their enthusiasm helped our business to continue growing in the following years. Thus, in the mid-1980s, Diproteg was created; a division bringing together all our farms and the work we did on them. Another step, looking toward the future!

Our motivation and desire to learn also motivated us to continue expanding the business and make another major leap: the creation of a business unit dedicated to food, nutrition, health and services for fish breeding. Over time, aquaculture has become one of our drivers of growth and an essential pillar for our future vision.

As conventional wisdom says, “in unity, strength”. In 1988, we decided to merge the two work Teams we had, to continue progress toward the future together, building synergies and competing in an ever-larger market. With the creation of Dibaq Group, we became a national point of reference synonymous with trust, guarantee of quality, commitment to research and respect for the environment.

The end of the 1980s was a decisive period. Our now extensive experience and our large Team of professionals gave us confidence to expand and make the leap to the international market, creating new businesses with distributors, importers and clients around the world. With time and a lot of effort, this Group has become an international point of reference in the manufacture of food for animals, present on 4 continents and in over 65 countries around the world.

Our experience and passion about the world of animal wellness and nutrition led us to expand our business in 1990. That year, we began to manufacture and commercialise ranges of products for pets (mainly dogs and cats), offering the nutritional solutions best adapted to their needs. Since then, this line of business has become one of the largest, always seeking the happiness of the animals.

Since we began, we have understood the need to commit to the future through research, development and innovation. Through the 1990s, this philosophy led us to invest in new technology such as two extrusion lines. Thanks to them, we are able to create diets and recipes with the best raw materials and the best quality for pets and fish of different species and ages. Our objective? Their health and wellness.

Our activity continued to grow, but we never forgot our origins and sense of family. Passion for this business forms part of our DNA, and the third generation of the Tejedor Lázaro family therefore began to join from the year 2000. They added their effort and passion to the rest of the Team, collaborating in the creation of new ideas and processes.

The start of the new century also brought with it the excitement of making a new leap to the international level (beyond exporting our products). Our experience and knowledge encouraged us to purchase a minority shareholding in FITMIN, a company based in the Czech Republic, dedicated to animal nutrition. Since then, we have collaborated with their Team to produce food for pets, livestock and competition horses, as well as carrying out research in this field in order to make the animals happier and healthier.

In the new millennium we also decided to begin the construction of new animal food plants for Dibaq Group in Fuentepelayo (Segovia), all with the latest innovations, laboratories, technology and processes present on the market. In the first decade of the 21st century, we built two new factories for pet food (one for wet food and one for dry food) and a plant specialised in nutrition for aquaculture. These plants are designed to operate without interruption, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with almost full automation. We carry out our work in order to improve customer satisfaction!

Years after landing in the Czech Republic with the acquisition of FITMIN, we wanted to expand our presence in Eastern Europe. For this reason, in 2007 we acquired Grupo Dibaq A.S., one of the main manufacturers and suppliers of food for domestic and farm animals in the world.

Thanks to this collaboration, we currently offer a wide range of foods, such as Premium and Super Premium range foods for dogs and cats; vitamin and mineral supplements and treats for dogs, cats and horses; Super Premium range extruded and granulated food for horses; pre-starter and starter for piglets; food for camels; treats for giraffes, elephants and rhinoceroses; and food for rodents and koi fish.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the growth achieved by Dibaq Group required new flagship headquarters for working each day, where our enthusiasm, effort and excitement would be concentrated. Taking advantage of the latest pet and aquaculture food plants being located in Fuentepelayo (Segovia), we decided to establish our central offices in this town, more specifically in a 17th century manor that we adapted for the purpose. Our growth allows us to remember our origins, and Fuentepelayo is a central part of our history.

Our experience managing factories and our knowledge of top quality raw materials led us to take another leap and begin a new adventure in 2013: the creation of Derwent Group. This new Group offers design and execution services of engineering projects, management and consulting services, and trading services for all those who wish to establish their own industrial projects. Transparency is one of our pillars, and motivates us to show our know-how to those starting their own adventure.

The creation of Derwent Group was not the only big milestone in 2013. The same year, we also decided to move toward electronic commerce, selling and commercialising our food products in the online world. To do so, we opened the doors of South Pacific Ocean S.L., and with it made the internet a new channel for contact with our clients, wherever they are.

We believe that to offer the best products and services, we must have high requirements and a control and monitoring system throughout all steps of the process.

For this reason, after years collaborating with franchises in various countries, Grupo Dibaq A.S. decided to end this business strategy and focus its efforts on the quality of the products it offers. All for the wellbeing of animals and the happiness of clients!

In 2015 we wanted to continue our growth, opening the doors of Eagle Heat S.L., a holding to unify part of our effort and experience, today represented by our values, mission, style and purpose.

In 2015, our desire to grow and overcome borders led our Derwent Group Team to collaborate in the design and construction of its first large engineering project at an international level, located in the Suez Canal. This was just the first of many! In recent years our professionalism, our experience and our nature have led many clients to trust us to form part of their projects around the world, like in Georgia, Russia and Qatar. We are now a point of reference in engineering for animal nutrition and marine farm factories!

We have always wanted to grow at an international level, but without forgetting our origins. Therefore, Derwent Group established its offices in Santander two years after its creation, to continue developing the market at a national level and to be as close as possible to Dibaq Group, based in Fuentepelayo, Segovia. We wanted to give back everything that the local community had given us over the years, and take care of our closest surroundings.

With the crisis experienced in 2012, the Team went from 250 people to 48, and some difficult years of recovery began. In 2015, Carlos Tejedor Lazaro,
Executive Chairman of the Group, began training in coaching, and from this time, seeing that it could be a good tool for people, what is today called Alborada Personas began. It started with individual and team coaching in order to “heal wounds” and help us with personal growth, improving skills and cross-functionality of teams. Within this process, innovations were made to the Group.

Installations adapted to the market, with latest generation technology are essential elements in our sector for offering top quality products.

For this reason, in 2017 we modernised our centre in the Czech Republic. We completely rebuilt the heating technology, replacing solid fuel with gas and installing adapted pipes in the installations of the factory. We want to continue growing without forgetting about caring for the environment!

In the world of animal nutrition, the machinery used in the food production process is of vital importance. For this reason, in 2018 we decided to invest in a complete line for the preparation and inclusion of meats and raw materials in the extrusion process. This equipment allows us to better process the raw materials and prepare the best food, with 100% natural ingredients for our pets.

Almost 70 years after our grandparents, José Luis Tejedor and Anastasia Lázaro, laid the foundations of the family business, we open the doors of Grupo Tejedor Lázaro with the intention of bringing all services and business units which have emerged over the years together under one umbrella. With a large Team of professionals and an extensive catalogue of services and products, this Group is a national and international point of reference for animal nutrition, health and wellness, offering 360º services and personalised assistance. A unique Group in Spain!

We believe that engineering is an essential pillar in any business for evolving, growing and adapting to new needs of the market. In 2018, this led us to open Derwent Project, a team dedicated to specific engineering projects related with aquaculture and animal food factories. For us, these projects have become an important part of our everyday work, and are essential elements of our DNA.

Since we began, we have been committed to our growth and to increasing our presence both within and beyond our borders. An example of this was at the end of 2018, when we opened the doors of Derwent Nutrition & Technology in the city of Bilbao, with the intention of exporting our products and services of food for pets and aquaculture fish at a national and international level. We love what we do and want to show our work to the whole world.

Our excitement and passion for animal nutrition has led us to continue growing and expanding our family during all these years. In 2019, for example, we took the great leap of acquiring the production of BOCUS foods, which produces and distributes food for farm animals of all types (from hens to cows and pigs). All for the good of the animals.

Three years after opening the doors of the Alborada Personas programme, we wanted to take another step in caring for our community.

Seeing that People and Teams are interconnected, we designed internal training plans to align purpose, targets, objectives and strategies (plans which remain in place today). Placing value on the experience of the Mentor, we want the direction followed by the whole Team to be the same, and ever-stronger.

Values, ethics, leadership, processes and regulations are the organizational structures on which the development of good corporate governance is based, enabling the organization to ensure that it executes its functions, implements strategies and achieves objectives. In 2021 we took our first step towards this milestone of implementing policies and regulations in relation to Compliance in our Group.

The Alborada Team Growth program has been an essential boost to our brand value. We have implemented a new commercial organization model for our growth plan. Innovation in internal processes and the search for new opportunities, significantly boosting productivity and business competitiveness.

The essential thing to achieve success has been to catalyze the potential of the human team and involve them in the design and implementation of the solutions created, thereby generating a shared vision that shines and gives life to our purpose.

Grupo Tejedor Lázaro joins the Spanish Global Compact Network of the United Nations (UN). The Group’s objective with this membership is to continue promoting the goals of our Commitment and Passion Committee, which ensures compliance with Agenda 2023, the SDGs and renew our Sustainability Report year after year.

The UN Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, comprising the principles and values of the United Nations. Thanks to its position, it enables you to foster collaboration between companies and governments to achieve focus on goals and increase solutions for the challenges facing the planet.

This first Sustainability Report of Grupo Tejedor Lázaro is a document that contains information on the environmental, economic, social and governance performance of the company. That is to say, the bases that constitute our Corporate Social Responsibility, a legacy of our founders since 1951, who already within their possibilities firmly believed in contributing to a more sustainable world.

The Commitment and Passion® Committee is in charge of ensuring compliance with our corporate social responsibility and working hand in hand with the rest of the Partners and all our Stakeholders and providing evidence of the compliance of our management system with the GRI standard, through AENOR.

Clic here to read.