Interesting facts

There is a traditional drink called “Chia fresca” that is prepared with Chia seeds. It is a mixture made up of fruit or vegetable juices and 15 g Chia seeds. Let mixture rest for 10 minutes, stir it occasionally to avoid clumps and finally enjoy a small nourishing meal!

Chia gel: mix Chia seeds or Chia flour with water and let it soak for 15 – 20 minutes; thereby stirring it several times in order to avoid clumping. The gel can be stored in the fridge for 2 to 3 days and can be added to your cereal, yoghurt or smoothie.

Another outstanding feature is its capability to soak up 7 to 12 times the amount of water in relation to its own weight. The polysaccharid gel contains fibers.

You can create tasty meals by combining Chia seeds with other ingredients.

Historically speaking, the Chia seeds come from Central and South America. They are hence not an invention of the modern age but a traditional food that has been popular for the past 2.000 years during the Age of the Mayas and Aztecs. At this time messengers ate the seeds in order to maintain their strength over long distances. That is why in the Mayan language “Chia” means “Strength”. In the Aztec language Nahuatl the word “Chian” means “oily”.

Pre-Columbian civilizations used the Chia seeds for religious purposes as well as for food and as a raw material for making colours and medicine. When the conquistadors under the rule of Hernando Cortez came to Mexico on November 8th in 1519 they found out very quickly that Chia was the main component of Aztec nutrition.

The sowing of the seeds in Mexico takes place in June. Therefore furrows are dug with a seeder and at the same time seeds are inserted. The specialised farmers supervise all the stages from sowing to harvesting without using any herbicides, fungicides or pesticides.

The plants grow and when they wither, seed capsules develop, which contain the Sachia^® seeds. The growth period has finished by the end of November. The harvest of the seeds is then carried out with big combine harvesters.

After the harvest the seeds are loaded onto a truck and transported to the cooperative silos where they are cleaned and stored. Every single shipment is checked for quality upon arrival at the warehouse and registered to each farmer respectively.

A large, specific and newly developed cleaning plant has been installed at Naturkost de Mexico and new positions were created.

An extensive training programme secures the professional handling of the cleaning plant, which has great capacities. Thus the corresponding crop quantities can be cleaned at short notice and stored afterwards.

Before the Sachia^® Chia seeds are shipped worldwide, the seeds are cleaned again for the validation of the product’s quality. After that the seeds are packaged in custom sized packages and shipped by sea freight.

In order to meet market demands we have installed further cleaning plants at our subsidiary in Mexico and also at our headquarters in Leutkirch/Allgaeu, Germany.