A new and tasty attraction in Santa Catalina Market – South African Speciality Foods.
Visitors to the bustling Santa Catalina Market in Palma de Mallorca may already have chanced upon a new and charming market-stall sporting the colourful South African flag and a rich array of enticing and interesting products displayed on the shelves and in the window. This stall is the new face and location of “El Toro Foods”, the local food company producing and purveying a wide range of unique South African speciality food-products.
Four years ago, South African yachtsman, Kev Bendall, decided to take the leap from a long career in yachting to a business endeavour on terra-firma, and together with his wife, Lara, took over from friends the operation of a successful pie-making business. Kev had been for years a regular at the “Pie in the Sky” café in Palmanova, and was a huge fan of their ‘pie-and-food’ products, so he and Lara took the plunge and threw themselves into running this food enterprise with great enthusiasm.
Pie-making was no longer to be their only activity within the business, and there was a name-change to “El Toro Foods”, with a focus on Kev’s and Lara’s strengths and knowledge of uniquely South African speciality-food products: in particular the traditional dried meat ‘biltong’, ‘chilli bites’, the South African farmers’ sausage ‘boerewors’ (made from age-old and traditional spicy family-recipes), the derivative dry-sausage ‘droewors’, and a range of traditional pies and sausage-rolls.
“El Toro Foods” soon outgrew their kitchen-and-café location tucked-away in Palmanova, where they carefully made by hand and sold fresh batches of their popular cured-beef products and pies each week. In December 2019 they opened shop in the bustling Santa Catalina Market in the heart of Palma, where yachting, local, and foreign customers can now sample and purchase the wide range of “El Toro Foods” products during a visit to the local market.
Kev and Lara still offer a free delivery service of pre-ordered products, to all major shipyards and marinas from central Palma to Port Adriano, as well as to the central island areas surrounding Binissalem village where they live.
Visit this typical South African-style ‘Biltong-shop’ at Santa Catalina Market, where customers have the option to select their piece of biltong and have it freshly sliced and ecologically packaged in a traditional brown paper-bag. You’ll also be able to pick up a gourmet sausage-roll from a tasty choice of ‘Cumberland, Boerewors, or Vegetarian’ style, select a pack of ‘boerewors-sausage’ for the weekend BBQ-‘braai’, and choose something from the special selection of imported South African products – like traditional chutneys and hand-made rusks. There are also plans to offer a broader range of cured meat-snacks and vegetarian snack choices.
Although ‘El Toro Foods’ operate on a small scale with minimal staff, customers will often find them actively involved in a variety of charity events and initiatives around Mallorca, such as ‘Palma Dogs’, the ‘Baby Jesus Xmas Classic Golf Event’, ‘Battle of the Burger’, and ‘Life is for Living’.
