The Fermin Family brings Spain’s famed Jamon Iberico to the U.S.
Credit Spain’s Fermin family for bringing the world’s most revered – and most expensive – ham to the United States: Jamon Iberico de Bellota de Pata Negra. The dry-cured pork is made only from 100 percent Iberian black-hooved pigs raised on acorns from oak forests on the Spain-Portugal border.
The family business founded by Fermin Martin invested a decade and millions of dollars to earn the first U.S. Department of Agriculture approval to sell the prized Spanish ham in the U.S. Now, Fermin’s grandson is starting his own chain of gourmet shops featuring the ham, with its first store in the Miami area.
What makes the Iberico de Bellota ham so special that it commands retail store prices topping $150 a pound and restaurant prices even higher (sometimes $35 for less than two ounces)? For starters, the ham takes more than six years to produce, including at least three years to cure the meat. It comes only from one breed of pig raised in only one mountain region where the animals roam the oak forests that produce the acorns they eat. That breed has an unusual ability to hold fat in its muscles, creating a wonderful marbling that helps the thinly sliced ham melt in your mouth.
“Consider the four aces in gourmet food – truffles, caviar, foie gras, and Jamon de Bellota 100% Iberico. They’re all similar. They have animal-vegetable components. They’re hard to obtain. They’re made in specific conditions that greatly limit production. And a little taste goes a long way,” says Raul Martin, the former U.S. sales chief for Fermin who now is developing his own La Jamoteca gourmet shops. “With just a small bit in your mouth, the satisfaction you feel is very elevated.”
The Bellota designation – named for the Spanish word for acorns – is so rare that just five percent of hams from Iberico pigs carry that insignia. Others come from mixed-breed pigs and eat foods other than acorns to double their size in their final months. And Bellota could become even more scarce, says Martin. Climate change is reducing rainfall in the dehesa oak forests where the pigs roam, limiting yields of the acorns that are key to their celebrated flavor.
For Fermin, developing a U.S. market for Bellota has been challenging. Martin says the decade-long process to obtain U.S. Department of Agriculture approval was “very complex” and involved “lots of trial-and-error” to standardize and document each step to export, from forest to factory and shipping. It’s also taken sustained and costly marketing to expose U.S. consumers to a new taste since 2008.
Chefs have helped raise awareness, including Spanish-American star José Andrés, whose restaurants often feature the delicacy. José Andrés says when Fermin’s Bellota “is under your nose, you know it -aromas of acorns, wet grass, and thyme… before you even taste it. Once the fat starts melting on your tongue, you get flavors of acorns, toasted hazelnuts, wet wood, and wildflowers – and then the fifth flavor, umami, adds a profound richness to round out the entire experience.”
Martin helped build Fermin’s U.S. distribution network, working from New York City, the country’s gourmet foods and luxury goods capital. He then opted to create his own retail business, starting in South Florida in 2018 with a kiosk in Dadeland Mall. Last year, he opened La Jamoteca gourmet shop on Miracle Mile in Coral Gables, offering what he calls “the largest display of Spanish hams in the U.S.” and other delights from Spain, including cheese, olive oil, wine and more. The shop’s small tasting menu highlights Bellota, or as Martin describes it, “the pride of Spain.”
