C O V E R S T O R Y

By Kimberly J. DeckerContributing Editor

undits in search of a pithymetaphor for the Latiniza-tion of the United Statesoften seize upon the para-ble of the two competing

condiments. As the story goes, the yearwas 1992 and Packaged Facts, NewYork, reported a 14% rise in salsa salesover the previous year. But while thespicy sauce raked in a record $640 mil-lion, sales of ketchup, America’s bestseller for nearly a century, lagged behindat a mere $600 million. To be fair, thehigher price of salsa relative to ketchupsoftens some of the statistic’s punch. Butever since, everyone from demographersto media executives to the very foodmanufacturers who produced the condi-ments in the first place accepted salsa’ssupremacy as a sign of things to come.

For despite its oversimplification,the story encapsulates a larger truthabout the changing flavor of NorthAmerican life: Hispanics are the coun-try’s largest, fastest-growing ethnicminority. At nearly 40 million strongalready — 44 million, if you countPuerto Rico — the demographic isincreasing at a rate of 7%, or 500,000households, annually, outpacing theU.S. Census Bureau’s 1999 forecasts.And with their growth rate expectedto exceed the general population’s byat least a factor of 10 in coming years,Hispanics will account for one-thirdof the nation by 2030. Translated intodollar amounts, that works out to acollective annual buying power esti-mated at $580 billion, approximately8% more of which goes to weeklyhousehold food purchases in non-Hispanic homes.

Salsa: a case studySo does salsa’s success send a mes-

sage to food manufacturers about thevalue of courting Hispanic-Americanfood dollars? Yes, but the messageisn’t as straightforward as manufac-turers might think. The northwardspread of Hispanic culture may haveset the stage for salsa’s stellar sales,but Hispanic-American consumershaven’t necessarily driven those salesthemselves.

“The biggest consumers of cannedor jarred salsas are Anglos,” saysVeronica Kraushaar, consultant to TexaSweet Citrus Marketing Inc., Mission,TX, and principle of Vanguard EthnicMarketing, Scottsdale and Nogales,AZ. In the May 1997 issue of TheAtlantic Monthly, Michael J. Weissreported that demographic surveysascribe the greatest U.S. salsa con-sumption to two groups: “upscale

Crossing Borders:

Designing for theHispanic Demographic

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Anglo families, who can afford to buya condiment that is more expensivethan ketchup and who appreciate salsa’slow-fat content,” and what he calls“downscale Latino families,” for whomsalsa is a staple that they’d rather pre-pare from scratch.

That way, Latinos can calibrate thesauce’s flavor to their own tastes, whichmay differ markedly from store-boughtsalsas. As Joe Bavone, R&D manag-er, Kerry Americas, Waukesha, WI,explains, North American consumersadopted salsa early in their explo-ration of Latin-American cuisines, sothe product “was never really devel-oped here with Latinos’ tastes in mind.It was essentially homogenized toAmerican tastes to appeal to a broad-er spectrum of non-Latinos.” In fact,he quips, North American salsa mayhave supplanted ketchup because,“essentially, it’s just another varietyof ketchup” — a sweetish, mild, toma-to-based sauce. “You can get mild,medium, and hot now, but even thehot isn’t necessarily as hot as you wouldfind in parts of Mexico.”

Further complicating matters, salsa— Spanish for sauce — can mean any-thing from the caramel poured overice cream to a scorching paste madefrom dried chiles and vinegar. Thechunky concoction of fresh tomatoes,onions, and cilantro familiar to us rep-resents only a sliver of the salsa spec-trum — and a predominantly Mexicanone, at that. More accurately called apico de gallo, this particular salsawouldn’t strike much of a chord withimmigrants from South America orthe Spanish-speaking Caribbean, whoare more likely to equate “salsa” witha parsley-speckled chimichurri, or acitrusy mojo criollo. It’s no coinci-dence, Weiss notes, that two U.S. citieswith atypically low salsa consump-tion rates — Miami and New YorkCity — also host sizable Cuban andPuerto Rican communities.

One name, many culturesSo while demographers might see

the saga of salsa as a snapshot ofAmerica’s future, food manufactur-ers would be wise to heed it as a cau-tionary tale about the complexity of

developing products to please theHispanic market. “You have so manyquestion marks hanging over you whenyou’re designing for Hispanic Ameri-cans,” says Leigh Enderle, market re-search manager, Givaudan Flavors,Cincinnati. First question: Who areHispanic Americans?

In the strictest sense, the term “His-panic” unites as an ethnicity those whotrace their ancestry to the countries ofthe Spanish-speaking world. But giventhe reach of Spain’s colonial empire,such a classification hardly narrowsthings down, lumping together nearly20 nationalities spread across the tropics,mountains, desserts, coasts and grass-lands of the western hemisphere.

Such a broad definition inevitablymasks local distinctions — and in theprocess, confuses outsiders and cre-ates tension among those so broadlydefined. “Some level of resentmentof the term exists for some membersof the population identified as His-panic,” says Don McCaskill, vice pres-ident for research, Riceland Foods,Inc., Stuttgart, AK. “Those individu-als make a case that it generalizes when,in reality, several distinctly differentpopulations exist: those of Mexican,Puerto Rican and Cuban descent; Cen-tral American refugees and immigrants;and South American immigrants.”

Even the Spanish heritage that unitesthem survives only to varying degreesand in a mixture of dialects. Moreover,Latin Americans have often distin-guished themselves from each otherby reacting against their shared inher-itance. Local responses to the RomanCatholic Church, race, politics, capi-talism and the sheer weight of pre-

With the basic elements of dairy, gar-nishes and salsa, an appetizer can appealto a wide range of cultural groups. How-ever, a simple accent of flavoring canspin it in any number of original directions.

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and post-Columbian history have allcarved out unique identities for LatinAmericans that defeat the notion of amonolithic Hispanic culture.

“Bolivians and Peruvians are strong-ly influenced by a mixture of Incanand Spanish culture, whereas Colom-bians, Venezuelans and Panamaniansshow an African influence,” explainsLionel Vil, R&D director for season-ings, Kerry Ingredients. Spain’s for-mer Caribbean colonies also cling toAfrican traditions, while visitors toChile and Argentina comment on howEuropean their city squares and tem-perate climate feel. And in Mexicoand Central America, the legacy ofthe Aztec and Mayan empires con-tinues to permeate spirituality, litera-ture, architecture and the timbre ofeveryday life.

La cocina mestizaLatin America’s cuisines tend to

bend to the same winds as culture.And when Columbus made landfallon what is now the Dominican Repub-lic, a gust blew through that wouldchange the way the region — and theworld — would eat forever (this phe-nomenon is known in some circles asthe “Columbian Exchange,” as describedin a book written in 1972 by socialhistorian Alfred W. Crosby). At thepotluck where the Old World met theNew, Europeans brought wheat, rice,olives, citrus, bananas, sugarcane andlivestock — including cattle, sheep,pigs and chickens — while the indige-nous populations contributed what hadsustained them for millennia: corn,potatoes, cassava, chocolate, vanilla,pineapples, turkey, tomatoes and the

full scope of the genus Capsicum. Thisculinary coming together laid the foun-dations for a cocina mestiza, or “mixedcuisine,” that defines the Latin-Ameri-can table to this day. Such standardfare as wheat-flour tortillas, rice-and-bean dishes, crispy corn snacks friedin pork fat, and the whole panoply ofMexican cheeses persist as edible arti-facts of the Columbian Exchange.

But they don’t persist everywhere,or with the same popularity. For exam-ple, although Mexican cooks use cheesein everything from soups to salads tostuffed chiles, the same isn’t true inother Hispanic countries. “If you lookto Cuba or Puerto Rico, when theyuse cheese, it’s often just as a snack,”says Barbara Gannon, vice presidentof corporate and marketing communi-cations, Sargento Foods Inc., Plymouth,WI. “It’s not usually incorporated as avital ingredient in a main dish.”

Similarly, contrary to popular U.S.opinion, not all Latin-American foodsleave a lingering capsaicin burn. “Onlyin Mexico, and to a smaller extent in

Guatemala and Peru, is the food real-ly spicy,” notes Denyse Selesnick, pres-ident, International Trade InformationInc., Woodland Hills, CA. Even withinMexico, a region like Veracruz reliesmore on capers and olives than sear-ing chiles to season its foods. “You’vegot fiery chiles, and you’ve got chilesthat give flavor without being hot,”Selesnick continues. “So spicy foodin Mexico is very different from whatyou’d find in Costa Rica or Caracas.”

As it happens, though, Mexicansaccount for nearly two-thirds of theU.S. Hispanic population, with PuertoRicans and Cubans coming in at only10% and 4%, respectively. And accord-ing to Givaudan resources, more than90% of our Latin-American restau-rants bill themselves as “Mexican.”Thus, much of what we know aboutLatin-American cuisine we’ve learnedfrom our neighbors to the immediatesouth.

But geography, climate, immigra-tion patterns and the unstoppable marchof time have bred endless variations

Mexicans have made cheese a staple intraditional dishes, like enchiladas. How-ever, Americanized products often sup-plant queso fresco with blends of yellowAmerican and Cheddar cheeses.

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on a collective culinary theme, ren-dering a blanket statement about thecuisines of the Hispanic world virtu-ally impossible to make. “Subtle dif-ferences in ingredients, preparationand even presentation are key to thepersonality of each,” says Kraushaar.

So while Mexicans might mash yes-terday’s pinto beans and fry them inlard, Cubans would probably steer moretoward boiled black beans mixed withrice and fried plantains. And corn maybe king in Mexico, but rice, potatoes,yucca and other starches reign else-where. Of course, that doesn’t meanthat you won’t find corn elsewhere,too, but you’ll have to look for it indifferent guises. In Puerto Rico, forinstance, pasteles are tamales wrappedin aromatic banana leaves, and in SouthAmerica, fresh-corn tamales dating backto indigenous times still go by theirQuechua name, humitas. Salvadoransmake a local version of the corn tor-tilla, called a pupusa, which they stuffwith meat, beans or cheese. And inparts of Venezuela and Colombia,arepas, flat cornmeal buns, take theplace of the daily bread.

The daily bread in Chile andArgentina, however, is just that: bread,made from wheat flour and in theFrench manner favored by the coun-tries’ European expatriates. Cubansalso adopted French-style bread, mostfamously in the “sandwich Cubano”— a baguette layered with ham, mojo-marinated pork, Swiss cheese, pick-les, mustard and mayo, flattened andtoasted in a plancha, or sandwichpress. Even in Mexico, the ultimateculture of corn, wheat-flour tortillas arethe norm in the north, and panaderías,or bakeries, sell wheat rolls called tel-eras and bolillos that, split in half andfilled with roasted meats, chorizo,vegetables and cheese, make massivesandwiches called tortas.

Old habits die hardTortas and Cubanos fit right in on

the menu board at any stateside sand-wich shop. (The Cubano, in fact, waspurportedly “invented” in Miami’s LittleHavana.) But the Latin-Americanimmigrants who introduced us to thesesandwiches sometimes have a hardertime making themselves feel at home.A whopping 63% of U.S. Hispanicsare immigrants, and depending on age,education, income levels, where theycame from, and where they settle, theiradjustment to life north of the border

— and the ability of their foodways tosurvive it — can vary widely.

We used to call this adjustment“assimilation,” and as Selesnickpoints out, earlier waves of immi-grants resolved to make theirs as seam-less as possible. “It used to be thateverybody wanted to be assimilated,”she says. But now, with the UnitedStates on its way to minority-majori-ty status, the classic immigrant driveto melt completely into America’s bub-bling pot has waned. Now, even sec-ond- and third-generation HispanicAmericans — the real engines of thedemographic’s growth — take pridein sustaining their parents’ and grand-parents’ traditions.

“It’s not that Hispanics don’t wantto become American,” Selesnick con-tinues. “They already are. But they’rea different kind of American. They’re

Americans who can speak Spanish athome and English with their friends.They can go out for pizza, a ham-burger or Chinese food and still enjoymoles and salsas with their families.They don’t want to forget their rootsor their language. They’re acculturat-ed.” And therein lies the difference:Acculturation blends what assimilationonce dissolved; it preserves, whereassimilation erased. To an immigrantwhose only roots tap into memories,this cultural connection gives pro-found comfort.

“The last thing you lose in your cul-ture is what you eat,” says Rafael Toro,director of public relations, Goya Foods,Inc., Secaucus, NJ. “You may find peo-ple who don’t speak the language oftheir parents or practice any of their cus-toms. But they still eat the food.”

Kraushaar concurs. “It is humannature to try to preserve your tradi-tions,” she says. “Food provides thatopportunity.” In fact, food serves as a“nonpolitical way of holding onto yourown cultural identity when you arebeing assaulted by the lifestyle of thecountry you immigrated to.” For LatinAmericans exposed to the globe-spanning din of U.S. pop culture, thatassault begins before they even crossthe border.

“There are emotional attachmentsto the food your mother prepared foryou,” says Felipe Korzenny, Ph.D.,

Panaderías sell wheat rolls called teleras andbolillos that, split in half and filled with roasted

meats, chorizo, vegetables and cheese, makemassive sandwiches called tortas.

cofounder and consultant, Cheskin,Redwood Shores, CA, “and those lastfor quite some time.”

Food and familySo strong are these attachments that

Sylvia Meléndez-Klinger, M.S., R.D.,L.D., a Chicago-based consultant toHispanic community groups and thefood industry, predicts that the con-tinued growth of the Hispanic popu-lation, coupled with its noted familysolidarity, will only reinforce cultur-al and culinary traditions. In LatinAmerica — and, by extension, Latin-American communities abroad — fam-ily and food are two sides of the samecoin.

This is, after all, a demographicthat treats grocery shopping as a bonafide family outing and considers themaking of tamales reason to convenea multigenerational party (Mexicanseven have a name for the events: tamal-adas.) Kraushaar can’t emphasizeenough that “family is everything tothe Latino. And food is the premierexpression of love for that family.”

Furthermore, 30% of Hispanic fam-ilies have five or more members,according to Via Texas Marketing,Mission, TX. “And if you have morerelatives around you,” Meléndez-Klinger claims, “they can keep youwith traditional practices longer. Youcan follow the advice of friends andfamily who arrived earlier about whereto go for the best prices and to findyour favorite Hispanic products.”

As easy as uno, dos, tresTraditionally, dinnertime is family

time in Hispanic households. “We’vehad many Hispanic mothers tell us:‘My kids might grab a quick breakfastand be on their way, and they may gettheir lunch at school. But we alwayssit down to dinner together,’” saysEnderle. Such determination is rarein an age when frenzied daily rhythmsdisconnect families members and leavethem fending for themselves at feed-ing time.

But even determined Hispanic-American moms find it hard to keepup with the demands of fast-paced

North-American life. So “while it usedto be, and still is in some situations,that the first-generation mother stayedhome and did all the cooking fromscratch,” Selesnick says, “now withtwo parents working, they’re lookingmuch more for convenience.” Case inpoint: Research from Swift & Com-pany, Greeley, CO, shows that 79%of Hispanic-American families sur-veyed named speed and ease of prepa-ration as key factors in food purchas-ing decisions, compared with only 52%of non-Hispanic whites.

Granted, “the first generation stillholds beliefs about freshness that pre-vent them from consuming certainfrozen and prepared foods,” Korzennysays. For example, Latinos cite thequality of fresh produce as the No. 1criteria for choosing a supermarket.“Careful selection of each piece ofproduce is part of the pride of provid-ing the best for the family,” Kraushaarsays. “Shoppers will squeeze, fondleand generally manhandle everything.”And, Gannon notes, even pre-shred-ded cheeses rob some first-generationconsumers of what they believe to betheir sacred preparation oversight.

To some extent, this resistance tovalue-added products owes itself tosimple frugality. “Consumers will buyhuge sacks of dried beans, and part ofthe reason is because it’s so muchcheaper,” says Korzenny. “When theymake beans for the whole family, forthem to buy enough cans would costupward of $10. With dried beans, theymight spend around $1. It makes ahuge difference.”

But as the Hispanic-American mid-dle class grows, it promises to shunt

Variations on Hispanic sandwiches, suchas the Cubano or torta, might featurespiced beef, roasted peppers and cheeses.Such products can prove popular with bothtraditional and assimilated immigrants.Ph

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more of its dollars toward conve-nience foods. While visiting groceriesin Miami’s Little Havana, Enderlenoticed “a lot more frozen completeCuban meals” in its freezer cases thanthere were equivalent products in Mexi-can and Puerto Rican markets she sur-veyed. Perhaps, she theorizes, that’sbecause Cubans are generally moreaffluent, allying them with mainstreamconsumers willing to pay a premiumfor a quick-cook meal. And with near-ly half a century in the U.S., a signif-icant number of Hispanics are U.S.-born, and thus almost four times aslikely to pull a frozen meal from thefreezer as are recent arrivals, accordingto Mintel International Group, Chicago.

Korzenny believes that manufactur-ers could broaden their markets beyondthe affluent and acculturated by mak-ing small investments in education.“Many convenience products aren’tconsumed by Hispanics not becausethey don’t like them, but because theydon’t know what they are or how touse them,” he says. Bilingual packag-ing helps, although the lesson of theChevy Nova — no va means “doesn’tgo” in Spanish — reminds us thatsemantics can be a dangerously stickywicket in the translation of one languageto another.

Perhaps a safer tactic is simple out-reach. Selesnick recalls that whenPillsbury, Minneapolis, had troublegenerating interest in its refrigerateddough products among Hispanic con-sumers, it “rolled out a truck with anoven and took it into Hispanic neigh-borhoods. They invited women to comein, have coffee and see how to openthe canisters of dough and make thesefresh breads that smell wonderful —that’s the first thing they noticed, thatsensory appeal. And so the womenlearned that they didn’t have to maketheir bread from scratch, and they didn’tnecessarily have to go to the panadería

A woman in form-fitting, flowered pants, gauzy fuchsia blouse and high-heeled sandals pushes the shopping cart at a supermarket in Pilsen, a Mexicanneighborhood on Chicago’s south side. She calls excitedly to the two childrenwho run ahead of her as she reaches for a box of pancake mix. She selects agallon of whole milk and lets the children choose a package of pink coconutsnowball cakes. Piñatas form a colorful swaying ceiling, and brassy musicwith a vibrating bass pulses through the aisles.

Leigh Enderle, market research manager for Cincinnati-based GivaudanFlavors, observes this scene. She jots sensory notes on index cards: “Loud,”“bright,” “sensual,” “mother and kids.” She smells deeply: Sweet floral? herbal?citrus? cinnamon? chiles? Enderle is one of 17 participants from the company’smarketing, R&D, sensory and culinary divisions on a Hispanic Trend Trek™.Givaudan began these treks several years ago to go beyond learning frombooks and the Internet, to uncover what traditional market research does notmeasure about emerging trends, and to inspire new directions in tastes andflavors.

Givaudan contracted with Food Marketing Support Services, Inc., Oak Park,IL, to design a sensory-based program that would expose the “cultural heartand soul” of major Hispanic groups in the United States. In Puerto-Rican andMexican neighborhoods in Chicago and the Cuban community in Miami, thegroup discovered themes: family values, the role of community and cere-monies, love of music, respect for history, nostalgia for the homeland, theimportance of homemade/traditional foods, brand loyalty, energy and action,passion, emotion and pride. The sensory words on index cards, along with pho-tos, flags, foods, and music become part of an on-site ideation at the end ofthe venture.

Sylvia Meléndez-Klinger, a Chicago-based Hispanic food consultant, was aguide and interpreter on the trek. She explained, for instance, that the moth-er Enderle observed would probably add both milk and eggs to the pancakemix, even though it didn’t require it. “A mother always wants to add somethingmore — to the pizza or canned soup — as a sign of her love,” she says, whilealso explaining that “Hispanic mothers believe that whole milk is more nutri-tious.” She also tells the group that it is common for families to be together— on a trip to the store or in the kitchen, around the table. Ads targeted toHispanics feature families — and the women are glamorous, like popularHispanic soap opera stars. “In real life, even those who are not so shapely areproud of their femininity and like to show off their bodies.”

Cultural mining is an essential part of product development at Givaudan.“We can talk about flavor, or texture, but that’s not the whole product,” Enderlesays. “We want to see a product outside the lab — in its cultural context.” Theauthentic influence in mainline products appeals broadly to consumers —

Hispanic and non-Hispanic, authentic and mainstream.Asked for an example, Enderle points to her hus-

band, Joe, a senior flavorist. Joe returned from theHispanic Trend Trek with a vision for marketing hor-chata, a popular rice-based Mexican drink. He addedbits of rice to horchata-flavored ice cream, pointingto its ethnic origins and giving it a texture like he’dexperienced. He also made it pink strawberry.

Meléndez-Klinger would approve. “We don’t likeplain!” she says. Remember the pink coconutsnowball cake in the supermarket? n

—Nancy C. RodriguezPresident, Food Marketing Support Services, Inc.

(nancy.rodriguez@fmssinc.com)

every day to get it fresh.” Within amatter of months, she says, sales ofthe products doubled.

No one would argue that refriger-ated, ready-to-bake rolls and biscuitsaren’t convenience foods. However,they’re in a special class of productsthat, while considerably easier to pre-pare and serve, incorporate the ele-ments of freshness and hands-on par-ticipation that compel Hispanic cookstoward scratch preparation. Remem-ber, Kraushaar says, “there is a highpride for a Latina to cook from scratch.

We’ve found that you don’t want totake away from the cook’s glory. Thecook must be able to add her specialtouch to the dish, whether it’s a region-al or family influence, using her owningredients.”

Mintel found that even Spanish-dominant consumers — presumably amore traditional bunch than Englishspeakers — will buy baking mixesand prepared dough because the prod-ucts give the illusion of scratch prep.So baking mixes and quick-cookingrice-and-bean dishes present productdevelopment opportunities that reachout to the Hispanic home cook. Forthe latter, McCaskill suggests goingwith a long-grain parboiled rice as aningredient because it “probably comesclosest to meeting both the necessaryfinished-product attributes and pro-cessing and handling requirements

and constraints in most prepared prod-ucts.” With the exception of PuertoRico, he continues, “long-grain ricetends to be most commonly used. Medi-um- or short-grain is popular in PuertoRico, although long-grain is substi-tuted in some recipes purportedlyoffered as authentic.”

On the bean ingredient front, BrianYager, corporate research chef, ADM,Decatur, IL, says, “dehydrated wholebeans work very well” in boxed-mixapplications. Black beans, pintos, kid-neys, dark reds and even light reds,

he says, are culturally consistent withwhat you’d find across Latin-Ameri-can cuisines. “There are other heir-loom beans out there, but they’re notreally that much of a draw for the aver-age home cook in Hispanic commu-nities, because they’re more expen-sive and they’re just not within thetradition.” Product developers shouldfind this encouraging, because usualsuspects, like black beans and pintos,are plentiful, easy to source, and eco-nomical. “And when you use thesebeans,” he adds, “the mainstreamAmerican public would be able torecognize them, and they’d be moreapt to try the product, too.” Manufac-turers can customize ingredients to fitthe product’s processing and prepa-ration requirements. For example, “ifthe rice in the dried mix cooks in fiveminutes,” using a combination of time,

temperature and pressure, “we cangive you a five-minute cooked bean.”

Yager mentions his company’s lineof instant refried pinto and black beans,which come in a “ribbons” form. “Theylook almost like broken pieces ofspaghetti,” he says. “They’re long, slen-der and porous, so they absorb a lot ofwater quickly.” How quickly? “Youbring the water to a boil, you add thebean product to it, you stir it, you takeit off the heat, let it sit for five min-utes, and it’s done.” Added to a soupmix or taco meal kit, it offers con-sumers a middle ground betweenscooping refried beans from a can andboiling, mashing, and refrying themfor themselves.

Ever faithfulEven in their home countries,

however, Latin Americans have longhad their pick of ready-to-eat mealsand convenient ingredients. Gone arethe days when Mexicans nixtamalizedtheir own corn, soaking ripe grains inquicklime to ease grinding and releasenutrients. Now corn processors takecare of the alkali treatment and grind-ing, producing instant masa harinamixes, if not the finished tortillas.“You’re going to find the same cannedfoods in Latin America that you findhere,” says Bavone, “and you’re alsogoing to find a lot more UHT prod-uct,” particularly where unreliablerefrigeration and inadequate infrastruc-ture preclude the distribution of fresh.

What’s more, the food industry’smultinational scope has given Latin-American consumers as many name-brand packaged sweets, breakfast cere-als, baked goods and beverages asappear in U.S. supermarkets. And makeno mistake: When Latin Americanshead north, that’s what they’ll lookfor. Much has been made of HispanicAmericans’ legendary brand loyalty,which, Kraushaar says, is second only

Spanish-dominant consumers will buy bakingmixes and prepared dough because the

products give the illusion of scratch prep.

to African Americans. So if they hada weakness for Nesquik in Colombia,they’ll bring that craving with themhere. In addition to homegrown bakedgoods and snack manufacturers inMexico, such as Bimbo, Gamesa andSabritas, many U.S. brands are peren-nial favorites, including Carnation,Sunny Delight, Jell-O and Quaker Oats.Products from The Coca-Cola Com-pany, Atlanta; H. J. Heinz Company,Pittsburgh, PA; The Kellogg Company,Battle Creek, MI; and Kraft Foods,Northfield, IL, are also continuallypopular.

Brand appeal isn’t just about tasteor convenience, either. As Korzennysays, a sense of status accrues toHispanic shoppers who purchase North-American products. “So when the upperand middle classes in Latin Americabuy a Sara Lee cake mix, they maychoose it more for the prestige of mak-ing an American cake.” The flipsideof such aspirational buying, Kraushaarpoints out, is that while “recent immi-grants reach for American brands in

Hispanics don’t like.” Thus, he says,many Hispanics “object to the tortillasthey can buy on the shelves here.”

A typical tortilla chip might alsoseem off-key to a Latin-American con-sumer, who looks for something “alittle coarser, harder, not really salty,with a lot of color variability fromlight to some dark spots, heavy cornnotes, and strong in a flavor called calthat is distinctive to authentic tortillasand comes from the lime used to treatthe corn,” explains Karen K. Trumbull,vice president of creative services,Food Marketing Support Services, Inc.,Oak Park, IL.

And as for nacho cheese-flavoredcorn chips, according to FedericoNoltenius, international sales regionmanager for Latin America, Kraft FoodIngredients, Memphis, TN, their mainaudience lies north of the border. If asnack chip is going to sport a jazzed-up flavor in Latin America, he wagersit’ll be chile-limón, not Cheddar.

The differences don’t stop there.Mashed plantains stuffed with sweetbean purée, avocado ice cream, desir-able sediment in beverages, water-melon candies laced with chile pow-der, tangy drinkable yogurts, a liberaluse of lard … These are just some ofthe ingredients, sensory profiles andproduct applications that “speak” toLatin-American palates.

Taking such elements into accountin product development, Toro says,has been key to Goya’s success. Indeed,he believes “it’s key to marketing toHispanics, period. The distinctionsare substantial.” The company’s 1,200SKUs acknowledge those distinctions,addressing not only general Latin-

their desire to belong, highly assimi-lated — i.e., secure — Hispanics goback to brands that they had as chil-dren in their homeland. I’m one whonow searches for labels that I remem-ber seeing as a child in Brazil but wouldnot touch when I arrived in this country30-plus years ago.”

Viva la diferenciaEven so, Kraushaar cautions: “You

can’t assume that Latinos will buy abrand just because it is Latino. It hasto be seen as authentic, and it has tocommunicate a specific image.” But aproduct developer weaned on Ameri-canized versions of Tex-Mex favoriteshas little cultural basis for determin-ing what that image is, let alone howto make it authentic.

For example, Korzenny says, evenan ingredient as basic as corn is “verycomplicated.” Most U.S. tortilla manu-facturers, he explains, use a hybrid vari-ety that yields a brittle tortilla. “That’swhy they crack when you try to rollthem. And that texture is precisely what

Tacos camarónes (shrimp) and pescados(fish), regional Mexican favorites, havegained favor as Hispanic cuisine has hitthe United States. Manufacturers can mineauthentic cuisines for undeveloped gems.

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American preferences, but regionalones, as well, offering Guatemalanstheir beloved volteado-style refriedbeans, Dominicans their beef-tripe mon-dongo stew, and Central Mexicans theirhuitlacoche corn fungus — all cannedand ready to go. And although Goyaproducts occupy a niche, it’s cush-ioned with intense customer loyalty.“We don’t market to Hispanics,” Torolikes to say. “We market as Hispanics.”

Going localNot every manufacturer can be

Goya, though. “There are big compa-nies out there who are not going tospend their marketing and researchdollars on making a niche product,”says Enderle, even if that niche com-prises millions of consumers. Mostfood companies, if they want to mar-ket to Hispanics at all, have to achievea broad appeal across the subgroups— as well as within the mainstreammarket — in order to make the effortfinancially feasible.

But that doesn’t excuse product

developers from doing their home-work. “The more mainstream the prod-uct, the more important it is to under-stand the subtleties of the variousHispanic cultures,” says Trumbull. Inother words, if we can’t dedicate anentire product line to second-genera-tion Puerto Ricans and another one toupwardly mobile, middle-aged Mexi-cans, we had better approach what wedo design with enough appreciationfor their regional differences to rec-ognize the universals.

And that means going local. “Comp-anies that are really serious about devel-oping new products for this marketare going to travel,” says Selesnick.“They’re going to go into some of theseareas to visit their markets, eat at localrestaurants, see what the tastes are.”

And sometimes, they’re just goingto play sensory tourist, soaking up acommunity’s sights, smells and soundsbefore they even start thinking aboutwhat anyone’s eating. Trumbull callsthis holistic approach to tapping sen-sory trends “cultural mining,” and she

practices it when she and her col-leagues at Food Marketing SupportServices lead industry professionalsthrough ethnic neighborhoods in pur-suit of the local color.

Trumbull specifically encouragesnonfood observations during culturalmining expeditions. For the first fewdays, in fact, “you don’t offer any expla-nation yet for what you’re experienc-ing, or any food-related characteris-tics or how you might apply theseobservations down the road,” she says.“It’s strictly an observation and anidentification of traditions. You’re look-ing at the communities, taking in allof the sensory stimuli: the music, thecolors, the sounds, the smells. It’s aboutgoing on location and just being therewith the people.” So, in Miami’s LittleHavana, “if we go to a cigar factory,we look at the colors, look at who’smaking the cigars: Is it men and women,or just men? What does it smell like?And we capture those impressions oncards or sticky notes that we carrywith us throughout the trek.”

Turning a feeling into foodAfter spending a few days immersed

in the culture, Trumbull says, “we lookfor what flows from that experience thatwe can merge into common themes.”These themes, she says, are “the mean-ingful threads that weave the com-munities together rather than separatethem: vibrant color, the beat, the music,the family influence.” By this time inthe process, participants have so inter-nalized such signals that “they’re on-track to translate them to food. Andthat’s the next step.”

Meléndez-Klinger, who has par-

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Product designers can create myriad vari-ations on the popular wrapped-tortilladish. Authentic spice blends and ingredi-ent choices, as well as the presentation,can draw interest from Hispanic subgroups.

ticipated in cultural mining expedi-tions with Food Marketing SupportServices, puts it this way: “Think ofthe colors of a piñata, the simplicityof it — it’s paper and cardboard. Itdoesn’t need to be very fancy. But it’svibrant, it’s in a shape the communi-ty recognizes, and it’s got the candyinside that they know. This is some-thing that brings back memories. Soyou’ve got the colors and you’ve gotthe fun. You’ve got to transfer that funto the food. It’s got to be colorful. It’sgot to be something that makes themthink of home and the flavors of home.I think of those cajetas, the goat’s milkcaramels that I remember were alwaysin a piñata in Mexico. How can youput that cajeta into a pancake, an icecream flavor, or a beverage?” This ishow dulce de leche worked its wayinto everything from coffee beveragesto lollipops, and it’s how tropical fruits,like tamarind and guanábana, piggy-backed onto more familiar carrierslike strawberry and vanilla, snuck intoPopsicles and yogurt.

But while a product developer mightswoon over the helados she tried at aChicago ice cream vendor’s cart, theice cream parlor on the corner of MainStreet, U.S.A., might not be ready forsomething like avocado à la mode. Inthat case, Trumbull says: “You lookat the color, the texture, the ingredi-ents, and you morph that into yourmainstream world. That way, you’regoing to hit some of the high notes,the drivers, the familiar feel, and you’restill going to have broad appeal.”

So what are some of the gems thatparticipants dig up on a cultural min-ing trek? For one, they learn that His-panic consumers don’t shy away fromcombining sweet, spice and salt inone stimulating package. “Just think,”Korzenny says, “Mexicans eat pineap-ple with lime, salt, and hot peppers.”Noltenius agrees. He’s seen flavor pref-

erence curves that show a prominentspike around the chile-limón profile,particularly among Mexican con-sumers. “It’s a really big flavor there.You see it in snacks, in potato chips,in corn chips,” he says — productswhose neutral flavor base balancesthe sharper spicy-citrus top notes. Thecitrus portion of the equation, in fact,is a near-universal driver for Latin Amer-icans, bridging the gap from savory— Kraft has introduced lime notes toa line of mayonesas for the Hispanicmarket — to sweet, where colas, fruitsodas, and other beverages often carrya lemon or lime tang.

Hispanic consumers also seem togravitate toward sweetness, and in abig way. “They definitely love sugar,”says Enderle. And she does mean sugar:With cane sugar a traditional com-modity in places like Puerto Rico andCuba, the taste for corn syrup — tosay nothing of artificial sweeteners —didn’t develop with the strength it hasin the United States.

Another popular sweetener, at leastin Mexico and Central America, ispiloncillo, unrefined cane sugar solid-ified into hard, brown cones. Like mostunrefined sweeteners, it has a deeper,muskier, slightly spicy sweetness thatcomplements rich, caramel-inflectedapplications, giving them a complex-ity that Bavone says is a trademark ofLatin-American sweets. “You’ll havethe caramel candies and the dulce deleche, but you’ll notice notes of thegoat milk they’re made with. You’llhave candies that are made with chilepepper — sweet and hot. It’s morecomplexity on many levels.”

The whole category of beverages isalso wide-open for exploration. Break-fast for many Mexicans, Meléndez-Klinger says, is atole, a thick masa-based drink, drunk warm andsometimes flavored with chocolate (inwhich case it’s called champurrado),

Having immersed themselves inthe sights, sounds and all-aroundsavor of Hispanic neighborhoodson their Latino Trend Treks™, thecreative minds at Givaudan Flavors,Cincinnati, got to work translatingsome of the sensations they carriedhome into flavor trends. Here are afew of their impressions and ideas.

Hispanic Savory Flavor Trends• Chocolate with cinnamon• Citrus• Coconut• Dark, sweet coffee• Guanábana• Guava and cheese• Honey and tobacco• Horchata• Lime• Mango• Mojito• Papaya• Pineapple• Mamey• Sangria• Sour-orange• Strawberry• Sugar cane juice (guarapo)• Sweet plantain

Hispanic Ice Cream Flavor Trends• Chocolate silk with sour-orange• Cinnamon and chocolate sugar cane• Cinnamon papaya cobbler• Coconut Champagne cola• Cream cheese and guava• Honey café horchata (tobacco)• Key lime mojito• Strawberry horchata• Strawberry sangria• Tropical sugar cane• Vanilla Jamaica (hibiscus flower)

Source: Givaudan Flavors, Cincinnati

fruits and nuts, cinnamon, vanilla orpiloncillo. Latin-American storesalready sell atole mixes, and Hispanic-American consumers might appreci-ate finding such products on shelveshere. Mexicans also love their hor-chata, a cool, cinnamon-spiced bev-erage made from soaked, pulverizedrice grains and almonds. Supermarketshelves carry refrigerated versions inflavors ranging from vanilla and bananato strawberry and chocolate, andMcCaskill says that “with regard toingredients and processing methodsin commercial products, rice flour orbroken grains could be used. A finalwet-milling step might then be appliedto further reduce particle size for addedsmoothness.”

Fruit smoothies and shakes attractboth mainstream and Hispanic shop-pers. Licuados, fruit and dairy shakes,sometimes fortified with raw egg, aremore popular with Mexicans, whilestraight fruit concoctions — calledbatidos in Cuba — seem to get moretraction elsewhere. Eva Rodriguez,director, regulatory affairs and quali-ty, iTi tropicals, inc., Lawrenceville,NJ, says that Latin Americans preparethe beverages at home by puréeingthe raw, fresh fruit with sugar, wateror milk, but manufacturers can usefrozen and aseptic purées to get a sim-ilar effect. “They’re more convenientthan the raw fruit because a purée isbasically a raw fruit without the skinor the pits,” she says. “It’s ready togo. It’s just easier than taking the man-gos and peeling them, dealing with

and chips with sweet-savory flavorcombinations, rich and gooey candies— and think: “We can do these.” Andthey’d be absolutely right. If a manu-facturer wants to grab the attention ofa Hispanic-American shopper, it does-n’t have to offer a full line of “authen-tic” frozen dinners bearing all the fla-vors of home, especially consideringthat the average Hispanic-Americanconsumer might deem the home kitchena better source of those authentic fla-vors in the first place. But few con-sumers, Hispanic or otherwise, canmake their own sodas, candies, icecream and packaged snacks. So a man-ufacturer’s better bet for capturing His-panic market share might be to stickwith the products in which they alreadyhave a core competency, and anglethese products more in the directionof the Latin-American palate.

When Meléndez-Klinger thinks ofPuerto Rico, she things of grape-,strawberry- and orange-flavored sodasin wildly vivid colors that don’t occurin nature. “They love the colors, theylove the sweetness, they love the fla-vor. You’ve got to think in those terms.Latin Foods are fun, sexy and full offlavor and color. Who wouldn’t beattracted to that?” n

Kimberly J. Decker, a California-basedtechnical writer, has a B.S. in ConsumerFood Science with a minor in English fromthe University of California–Davis. Shelives in the San Francisco Bay area, andenjoys cooking and eating food in addi-tion to writing about it.

the seed.” Processing also extends theshelf life — aseptic products, whenstored properly, last about a year, andfrozen products approximately three,she says — while preserving the fla-vor and texture of the fruit. And tex-ture, Rodriguez adds, is crucial to afruit beverage’s Hispanic appeal. “Pulpis a desirable sensory characteristicthat the Hispanics are used to, unlikein the American markets where yousee the juices made with clarified ingre-dients that are free of pulp.”

Another theme that Enderle noticedwas an overall acceptance — indeed,a preference — for artificial flavorsthat would be very difficult to mistakefor the real thing. Strawberry notes, shesays, graced everything from bever-ages to yogurts, and nobody seemedto mind that they tasted very little likestrawberries fresh from the field. Chalkit up to economics and nostalgia. “Nat-ural flavors are very expensive,” shesays, “and to make a product with anatural flavor is probably going to becost-prohibitive” for some Latin-Amer-ican manufacturers, not only becausethe flavors themselves are expensive,but because they may require overages,encapsulation or other processing pre-cautions to maintain their integrity inthe finished product. And if you grewup drinking an artificial strawberrysoda, you may prefer it to natural. Nowonder Tang orange-flavored drinkmix is such a hit in Latin America.

Product developers might look atthese examples — sweet and fruitybeverages in fantasy colors, snacks

Reprinted from the September 2004 issue of Food Product Design