Cristóbal Colón, founder and soul of La Fageda, passed away this Thursday leaving behind one of the most unique business and social initiatives in Catalonia and Spain. A psychologist by training, he created in 1982 together with his wife, Carme Jordà, a project that was born to restore dignity to people with mental disorders and intellectual disabilities through work. More than four decades later, that idea that many considered nonsense has become an organization that serves more than 600 people and a widely recognized and profitable food brand.
Read more The Congress endorses granting Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born under Spanish administration
Colón used to say that he did not aspire to have “a good life,” but “a good life.” The distinction summarizes his way of understanding existence and also the company. La Fageda was never conceived as a dairy business that incorporated a social aspect, but as a social project that needed a solid business structure to survive. The yogurts were the means, but the goal was for people who had been excluded from society for years to feel fulfilled and part of a community.
Born in 1949 in Zuera (Zaragoza), he came from a humble family. The premature death of his father forced him to start working at 14 as a tailor apprentice in an uncle’s workshop. That trade instilled in him a taste for well-done work and the patience of a craftsman, two traits he later transferred to La Fageda.
His path was far from linear. He became interested in Marxism, was politically active, and was imprisoned during the Franco regime. At 22, he started working as an orderly in a psychiatric sanatorium in Zaragoza. The experience deeply marked him. The then-called asylums were places of isolation where, as he would explain years later, suffering ended up erasing people’s dignity. Later, he studied Clinical Psychology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and specialized in occupational therapy.
During his work in various psychiatric hospitals, he met Carme Jordà, a psychologist and inseparable partner in his personal and professional adventure. Both shared the conviction that the fictitious occupations offered to inmates had little therapeutic effect. It was not enough to entertain them; they needed real work, useful to others, with a product someone wanted to buy and for which they received a salary.
In 1982, Colón left the psychiatric institution in Salt accompanied by Jordà, other professionals, and about fifteen patients. They settled in a room of the Carme convent in Olot, provided by the City Council, with no money and not yet knowing what to produce. They started doing work for other companies and painting artisanal figures. Then came a gardening brigade, a forest nursery, and finally, a farm on the Els Casals estate in Santa Pau, in the heart of the Garrotxa Volcanic Zone natural park.
Yogurt production did not begin until 1993. The first order was for the Vall d’Hebron hospital in Barcelona, and the first store to sell them was the Màxim supermarket in Olot. The bet seemed reckless. A small local cooperative intended to compete with the large multinationals in the sector. Colón found the answer in quality and control of the entire process, from caring for the cows to the product’s arrival at the supermarket.
La Fageda later expanded its activity to ice cream, jams, desserts, and gardening services. It also created residences, assisted living apartments, occupational services, and job insertion programs. Its model ended up being studied in business schools such as IESE, Esade, and Harvard because it demonstrated that profitability and business excellence could serve a social purpose.
Colón distrusted labels and preferred to talk about people with different abilities. He argued that work should not only serve to earn a salary but also to build identity and receive recognition. “The meaning of life is a life with meaning,” he repeated. In his last major public speech, upon becoming an honorary academic of the Royal European Academy of Doctors, he maintained that the human being retains an inviolable dignity even in the fragility of mental illness.
In March 2024, he left the presidency and general management of La Fageda after having prepared his succession for more than a decade. Sílvia Domènech took over as general manager and Josep Maria Bonmatí as president, while he became honorary president. He wanted to ensure that the project would endure beyond its founder, perhaps the most difficult test for any initiative so linked to an extraordinary personality.
He received, among other distinctions, the Creu de Sant Jordi, the Medal of the City of Olot, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Girona. However, his main legacy remains in Garrotxa. There, among beeches and volcanoes, hundreds of people found employment, a community, and a place in the world. Cristóbal Colón said that La Fageda was not really dedicated to making yogurts, but to people recognizing each other. That was, in the end, the enterprise of his life.
