2001-06-16
The following story appeared in Friday's edition of the Cleveland Plain
Dealer.
The gist of the article is the growth in Hispanic stores selling products
from the homeland. If anyone is in the states where these stores exist, and
can visit one or more, can you report back as to the labelling on the
containers? let us know if these stores are infusing America with SI, or
the other way around.
A market in groceries
Growing U.S. Hispanic population attracts big Mexican retailers
By Leslie Gorstein
Associated Press
Los Angeles - They're called the Motherland foods: An 25 m-long wall of
exotic condiments including dried hibiscus flowers, pepper-infused tortillas
fried on the premises, eight breeds of chiles and breads called Bimbo.
The gigantic grocery chain and a growing number of other Mexican retailers
are counting on such familiar products to lure Hispanics to their expanding
empires in ethnic enclaves across the Southwest.
"The focus of this type of Mexican enterprise is to take advantage of the
value and potential in the Hispanic market," said Herminio Hernandez, a Los
Angeles based trade commissioner for Mexico.
Gigante has been joined in the move north by, among others, FAMSA furniture
chain and Bimbo bakeries.
They have been lured by a Hispanic population that is both soaring in size
and making more money. The magazine, Hispanic Business estimated total
Hispanic income, after state and federal taxes, at 282.5 G$ last year, up
nearly 100 M$ from a decade earlier.
The growing market, coupled with benefits of the North American Free Trade
agreement, have proved irresistible for Mexican retailers that target
Hispanics in their advertising with the hope of drawing customers familiar
with their products.
Gigante (pronounced hee-GAHN-tay) operates three stores in the Los Angeles
area and is planning three more in Southern California, which has long been
a hotbed for markets catering to individual ethnic groups.
Parent company Groupo Gigante is the second-largest grocery chain of a total
of 280 stores and representation in most major cities. The firm reported net
income of about 112.5 M $last year but won't say whether its U.S. operation
is making a profit. The firm did say it's having a hard time matching the
buying power in this country that it has in Mexico.
"That is the biggest challenge," said Gigante USA President Justo Frias.
Analysists said it's too soon to say whether some companies are making money
in the highly competitive U.S. grocery and retail sectors.
But managers at Gigante's Covina store said it's doing a thriving business
selling 400 to 500 concha sweetbreads a day - at four for 99 cents - and
Mexican chicken franks at 79 cents a pack.
Along with the Motherland foods, the store offers a variety of salsas
prepared on site and traditional Mexican tres leches cakes made by a head
baker who brought a family recipe with him from Mexico.
Shoppers insist that ethnicity has nothing to do with the appeal of the
store.
"It's about price," said, Estella Talamantes, who immigrated 20 years ago
from Mexico and shops at the store in Covina, a city 30 km east of Los
Angeles where 40 percent of the 49,000 residents are Hispanic. "If you are
familiar with a product and know what it does, it doesn't matter where it
comes from."
FAMSA, best described as a cross between Circuit City and Ikea, isn't just
using low pricing in its push into the U.S. market. It's also trying to make
shoppers feel at home by providing bilingual staff and other amenities.
On a wall of televisions for sale, Mexican pop star Julieta Venegas rocks
out in Spanish. Salespeople approach customers with promises of credit in as
little as 20 minutes -- an important issue for immigrants used to 80 percent
finance rates back home. The store is only steps from a major highway, smack
in the middle of an industrial zone in downtown Los Angeles.
"These stores' are not opening in the suburbs," said Carlos Valderrama,
director of Latin American operations for the international business law
firm of Carl Smith Ball in Los Angeles.
Another Mexican firm moving into the U.S. market is Grupo Bimbo, which in
1998 bought Mrs. Baird's Bakeries, a nearly century-old Fort Worth, Texas
institution. The company now distributes in six western states through the
brand.
Business is expected to increase as the Hispanic population booms. Newly
released Census data shows that people of Mexican decent jumped 38 % over
the past decade in California and now make up 25 % of the state's
population.
The growth rate is mirrored in states all along the Mexican border.
John
Keiner ist hoffnungsloser versklavt als derjenige, der irrt�mlich glaubt
frei zu sein.
There are none more hopelessly enslaved then those who falsely believe they
are free!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
