Meet the Hungarian man who makes pálinka in Colombia – VIDEO

It is not every day that you hear about a former NASA employee who decides to set up a company in a Colombian city that still bears the marks of Pablo Escobar’s narcoterrorism.

“Our aim is to show customers the treasures of Colombia,” says Dániel Endrődi, co-founder of BioFarm Factory, a Hungarian-Colombian company headquartered in Medellín. After spending several months perfecting their products and obtaining permits, they have now begun selling them, writes Index. Their product range includes fresh and dried fruits, cold-pressed oils, and coffee – pretty much everything that Colombian agriculture has to offer, many of them unknown or incredibly expensive outside of the country.

And then there is pálinka, the traditional Hungarian spirit, but with a Colombian twist: it is made of prickly pears.

• Read more: Everything you wanted to know about the Hungarian pálinka!

While they are hoping to reach an annual revenue of 500,000 to 1 million dollars within a year or two, money is not the sole focus of their enterprise: they help farmers by purchasing crops straight from them, instead of intermediaries, who often exploit the poor workers. Living conditions are not the only problem in Medellín: while the place has undergone a major transformation to become a smart city, the memories of its inhabitants remain. Medellín was the centre of Pablo Escobar’s powerful drug cartel and, according to Endrődi, almost every farmer they work with has a traumatic experience related to its operation.