Antonio Luque, award-winning entrepreneur of the year by US firm EY

Antonio Luque, president of the Andalusian agro-food cooperative Dcoop has been distinguished by the US firm EY with the Entrepreneur 2016 Award, in an event celebrated on November 23th  in Seville and which was attended by Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido, and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development of the Junta de Andalucía, Carmen Ortiz.

With this recognition, which Antonio Luque has received from the hands of the Minister of the Interior, the president of DCoop is running as a finalist for Andalusia and Extremadura to the national final of the 2016 EY Entrepreneur Award, which will take place next March in Madrid.

The celebration of this event took place in the Consulate of Portugal in Seville, where a large group of representatives of the business world, political and institutional Andalusian and Extremadura gathered.

This award has 21 years of history and its origin in an initiative emerged in 1986 in the United States.

The national winner will attend the edition of the World Entrepreneur of the Year Award, which involves around 60 representatives from around the world

This award is also a recognition of the activity of the main Andalusian agri-food cooperative, the world’s largest olive oil manufacturer, with average yields of around 220,000 tonnes of virgin olive oil, as well as leading in other strategic sectors for national agriculture such as wine or table olives.

Currently Dcoop is a reference firm in countries like China or the United States and has a turnover close to 1,000 million euros. It includes 150 cooperatives from Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, bringing together a social base of more than 75,000 families of farmers and ranchers.

DCoop is the second largest cooperative in Spain and the largest exporter of food of national capital