Our Story: From a Chance Meeting to a Shared Vision
Introduction
About Iulian
Iulian arrived in Spain in 2005. In Almuñécar, on the Costa del Sol, he began working alongside farmers—testing, learning, and respecting the land and those who tend to it. He discovered tropical fruits not in books, but in the orchards, with his hands full of dirt and the sun on his neck. And something was ignited forever.
About Marc
Marc grew up on the other side of Spain, in Barcelona, within a family where fruit wasn’t a commodity, but passion and tradition. His grandparents had built the PERALS brand, a staple for years in Mercabarna and, before that, the Collblanc market. They began the family journey with carefully selected apples and pears, eventually specializing in gourmet products, like tropical fruits. That is where his obsession with quality, selection, and authentic flavor was born.
Marc started his professional path in another company within the market and soon sensed that consumer behavior was shifting. He traveled through different countries and realized the opportunity to bring exotic fruit directly to Europe. Thus, an unconditional love for this fruit was born.
Chapter 1
The Search in Barcelona
We knew each other online. We followed each other from a distance. We knew of one another, but we had never met in person. Until one ordinary day, Iulian felt he had to find Marc. Not “someday.” At that exact moment.
The journey to Barcelona wasn't easy. On the way to the Malaga airport, he realized he hadn't checked in. The deadline had passed. He arrived with his heart in his throat, with only 30 minutes left until takeoff. Nothing was guaranteed. A woman at the counter looked at him, listened, and with a gesture that would change everything, decided to help.
“Forced check-in.” “Last chance.”
He boarded the plane just minutes before departure. He slept barely two hours in Barcelona, and by four in the morning, he was already at the market. But the market wasn't open yet. Someone had given him the wrong time. He waited until seven. He walked miles through the immense facility, asking, searching for a face he only knew from TikTok, a name that few yet identified: Faszina Selected.
It seemed he wouldn’t find him… And just as the hours were drawing to a close, he saw him.
We shook hands, and we knew. We didn't think. We didn't doubt. We knew. As if we had known each other a lifetime.
Chapter 2
The Journey to the Source: Ecuador
From then on, everything began to flow naturally. The collaboration came to life, and our common desire became clear: not to stay on the surface, but to go to the source. Thus, we arrived in Ecuador for ten days that changed our lives. We wanted to see with our own eyes where each fruit came from. To talk to the farmers, to understand their work, their sacrifices, and their stories.
We met extraordinary people, collaborated with Chris and Ximena, and toured plantations of pineapple, granadilla, soursop (guanabana), jackfruit, yellow dragon fruit, and many more. We saw how they grow, how they are harvested, and how much labor goes into them before they reach the tables of Europe.
We reached the Equator line—the place where water swirls differently on each side of the world. A perfect symbol of what we were experiencing: we were exactly on the border between who we had been and who we were about to become.
Ecuador fascinated us and shook us at the same time. We fell in love with its people, its nature, and its simplicity, but we also saw the harsh reality of a beautiful and fragile country. A life lived with dignity but full of hardships. Farmers working from sunrise to sunset and families for whom every harvest represents the security of the next day. We saw sincere joy, but also worries we don't experience and dangers they live with daily.
Then we understood, perhaps for the first time truly, how privileged we are and how much responsibility we carry. In those days, we understood something essential:
We don’t sell fruit. We sell their journey.
Fruits that leave the orchards, board a plane, pass through our warehouses, and arrive at your homes in record time. Behind every flavor, there is work, risk, passion, and real people.
Chapter 3
The Five Dollars and the Purpose
And like every true story, ours is also made of small moments, seemingly insignificant, but that say everything. One day, while touring markets and orchards, Iulian found five dollars on the ground. He tucked them into his pants pocket, never imagining they would be important again.
That night, those pants ended up in the washing machine. We didn’t wash them because we didn’t know how to start it. The next day, we had an extremely important meeting. We were already late in a taxi when the driver told us he only accepted dollars. The card didn’t work, and Euros weren’t valid. For a few seconds, all seemed lost.
Then Marc remembered the five dollars still in the pocket of those pants, still inside the washing machine. We found them. And they were exactly enough. Marc’s intuition and Iulian’s “luck” took us right where we needed to be.
Luck? We don’t think so. Rather, a sign from God that we were on the right path.
Chapter 4
Travel with flavor.
The Essence
Sitting on the steps of a restaurant, exhausted, with the dust of the road still on our shoes and Ecuador still alive within us, we sat in silence for a few minutes. We looked at each other and understood the same thing: we hadn’t traveled halfway across the world to sell fruit.
We had come to understand the flavor. The people. The journey.
Everything clicked: the orchards, the farmers, the risks, the travels with a heavy heart, and the fruits that pass through so many hands before reaching home. Then, almost at the same time, we spoke the phrase that would define us forever:
Travel with flavor.
It became our motto and the essence of everything to come. Because we truly had traveled for flavor. Because every fruit carries a journey within it. And because we wanted you, through Dulzes Exóticos, to travel too—without a plane, without luggage, only through the aroma.
And perhaps, in the end, that is all that matters. Not how many kilos we sell. Not how many miles the fruits travel. But why they travel them.
Because Dulzes Exóticos was not born of comfort. It was born of paths traveled with a heavy soul, of scorching orchards, and the courage to believe when nothing was certain. We didn’t start from zero. We started from less. From longing. From risk. From the dream that honest work can be felt in the flavor.
Dulzes Exóticos is the bridge between the orchards and your hearts. It is proof that flavor can tell a story. And that, sometimes, a fruit is not just a fruit.
It is our journey to you. And, from now on, your journey alongside us.
Travel with flavor.
