By: Federico Garcia
Last Saturday the alfajores company from La Plata “Monje Negro” won an award at the Alfajor World Cup which was carried out in the Central Gallery of the City of Buenos Aires until last August 6, within the framework of the Argentine Alfajor Fair.
The company founded five years ago by Pablo Novas and Germán Aenlle, and another person who would later sell his share to Fernando Muñoz, won in the category “Best texture” with its variety of intense cocoa. The jury voted according to how the different raw materials of the aforementioned sweet treat came together.
The winning alfajor has a cocoa lid and a double coating of semi-sweet chocolate, and shares the poster with the varieties of traditional, white and cornstarch chocolate. Soon, as Muñoz anticipated to Info White On Blackthe venture will add a new one dipped in white chocolate.
“We have been here for five years, we passed the pandemic that was very hard and we resurfaced a year ago,” the city resident recalled in dialogue with this medium.
The retail store, where the company also sells its own coffee, is located at 25 and 44. And the factory where the alfajores are made, at 39 between 27 and 28.
It is worth noting that none of the three partners, who have other activities in addition to the aforementioned undertaking, had pastry experience, but it was a business opportunity that seemed interesting to them, and “they got involved”.
When they bought the machines, the partners also had a first approach to the task of making alfajores as well as the first recipe, which was later mutated until it is the one that exists today.
Currently, in addition to selling in La Plata from their store and other businesses, they also sell in Chascomús, Tres Arroyos, Necochea and Misiones. In that province of northern Argentina they have a good impact due to the demand of the Brazilian neighbors.
The chocolates are semi-artisanal because a part is made with machines and another part is done manually.
They are carried out by members, sometimes with the help of a friend, for half a day. “Luckily we have little stock because we sell a lot,” Muñoz stressed.
In just one day, the three partners make around a thousand alfajoreswith a production method that first goes through a dispenser where you put dulce de leche on one of the lids and immediately afterwards the other lid is placed on top manually, then the alfajor is passed through a bather, then through a tunnel of where the members receive them manually from the other side and put them in a machine called flowpack to package the alfajores, after which they are placed in boxes of twelve units.
Although at the moment they had no problems with the packaging or shortages, Muñoz said that with each rise in the dollar, costs do rise.
Finally, the entrepreneur revealed to Info White On Black why the company is called that: “It came for a millionaire monk from Florence (Italy) who proposed to make a bonfire of the vanities and burn all things of value in order to enter spirituality, since according to him wealth was a spiritual theme”, and added that the idea of Monje Negro is that people do not simply eat an alfajor but rather that it be “a more abstract and sensory experience”.