GastroTour Cinco Jotas: How Chefs Became Our Best Sellers of Jamón Ibérico
- Jose Sol
- 19 minutes ago
- 5 min read
The world of premium gastronomy is full of iconic products... oysters, foie gras, caviar… But outside Spain, Jamón 100% Ibérico Acorn Fed competes in that same arena.
To earn its place, it needs more than traditional marketing. It needs a strategy that understands how international markets think, choose and fall in love with food.
And in global gastronomy, there is one group of people who shape trends more than anyone else:
The chefs.
What a chef puts on a menu doesn’t just fill a plate... it sets a direction, it influences consumers, inspires other restaurants, and gives credibility to any product lucky enough to be selected.
That idea, first an instinct and then a conviction, is what led me to create what many now know as the "Gastro Tour Cinco Jotas", a campaign that changed how our brand performed in the UK and helped position Jamón Ibérico exactly where it deserved to be.
Why We Needed a New Approach to Selling Jamón Ibérico Abroad
Years ago, the international strategy for Iberian Ham (jamón Ibérico) always looked the same:
Product demos
Traditional tastings
Corporate events
PR actions that rarely reached the right audience
Useful, yes. Transformational? Not really.
All these actions had one big limitation:They never reached the people who decide what enters a menu and what doesn’t.
Top chefs in London had no reason to work with Iberian ham not because of quality, but because there was no narrative, no creativity and no presence connected to it.
My vision was simple:
We shouldn’t just show the Jamón... We should turn it into a luxury ingredient.
We shouldn’t just present it...We should inspire chefs to use it.
We shouldn’t just sell it... We should make people want to buy it!!!
And the only way to make that happen was by entering the kitchens of those who set the pace of a market.
The Project Marketing Buried… Until the Right Moment
During my time as Brand Ambassador for Cinco Jotas, I developed a project designed to engage international chefs and elevate the position of Jamón Ibérico in fine dining.
It was a strategic change. It required breaking routines and taking risks. And for that very reason, the internal marketing team decided to hide it in a drawer.
My idea was hidden... untouched, for two years!!!.
But things changed.When Javier Herrero took charge of international markets and Ángel Barriopedro stepped in to lead the UK (and later promoted me to Director of the UK market), they listened, they understood the concept from the first minute.
Their trust gave me the green light.
My first move?
Open that drawer, take the project out and rebuild it... bigger, sharper and more ambitious!!!
This is how the GastroTour Cinco Jotas was finally born.
(And yes… the concept, structure and original execution were my idea, based on real market insight.)
The Core Idea: Turning Chefs into prescribers… and customers into ambassadors.
The power of the Gastro Tour was its simplicity and its boldness.
Here’s how it worked:
Invite selected chefs to create a signature recipe using Jamón Ibérico Cinco Jotas.
Add the recipe to their menu for a limited time.
Promote the dishes and the restaurants on all our channels.
Drive people to taste the recipes and vote for their favorite.
A win–win approach:
Chefs gained creativity, visibility, and something new for their guests.
We gained authenticity, credibility, and—most importantly—sales.
Marketing didn’t support it internally, but that no longer mattered. We had momentum. We had a vision. We had London waiting!!!
The Buzz: London Had Never Talked About Iberian Ham Like This
The reaction was immediate.
The numbers that tell the story:
37 restaurants involved in more than 5 cities
26 chefs, including Michelin-starred names
Unique recipes created exclusively for the Gastro Tour
Photos, videos and organic content everywhere
Foodies, critics and regular diners talking, sharing and voting
A wave of visibility we had never achieved before
The Gastro Tour became a conversation. And in a market like the UK... competitive, saturated, demanding, being the conversation is priceless!!!.
For the first time, Jamón Ibérico stopped being “a Spanish product” and became a contemporary gastronomic experience, interpreted by the most respected chefs in the country.
When Strategy Turns Into Real Sales
Visibility is great, but results are better.
And the Gastro Tour delivered both.
Cinco Jotas became the best-selling Iberian ham in the UK that year
We hit record numbers in volume and value
The company remained a leader for several years
Premium restaurants that had never worked with us opened their doors.
A long-term network of chef-partners was created
And when something works, it grows!!!
The campaign was later replicated in the United States, this time with ten times the budget bigger that I used in the UK. A clear sign of the value the original concept created.
Today, more than seven years later, the GastroTour continues to be replicated. A marketing strategy that was born from zero budget, pure creativity and a deep understanding of the market.
And yes, this makes me proud... It reminds me that sometimes breaking the rules is the only way to make progress.
A Personal Project. A Professional Vision.
This story matters to me because it carries a truth I want to keep clear:
The Gastro Tour Cinco Jotas was born from my insight, my experience and my work.
I fought for it, developed it, executed it and proved it could succeed, even when the marketing team didn’t believe in it.
I will always be grateful to Javier Herrero and Ángel Barriopedro for backing the project when it mattered most.
And above all, Gastro Tour showed that selling Jamón Ibérico abroad requires more than a great product... it requires gastronomic strategy.
Thank you to all the chefs, restaurants, my sister Pilar Sol for the design of the logo, and my friend Óscar Rodríguez for capturing the essence of every dish and every moment.
Jamón Ibérico needs marketing…but it needs the right kind of marketing:
The kind that is cooked in real kitchens, shared at real tables, and lived in real experiences... not built on an Excel sheet.
That was the soul of the Gastro Tour.
My passion.My vision.My story.
If you want to see the success of the Cinco Jotas Gastro Tour, just search for this hashtag or similar ones on social media. #GastroTourCincoJotas
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