Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery - December 2008 - (Page 14)

Continued from page 12 for us,” Chris says. “We’re not going to be selling taquitos that are the size of a pencil. They’re going to be full of good quality beef or chicken.” Albuquerque Tortilla Co.’s frozen entrees and prepared foods also aren’t for the feign-hearted. In fact, the company is betting that New Mexican cuisine, or at least a version of it, will be “the next hot thing.” “We may have to do different things for different markets,” Chris says. “Our products are unique. The ﬁrst time you taste a hot, green chile, it may wake you up a bit. We may have to tone down some things depending on the feedback we get from certain regions of the country.” From a distribution perspective, prepared meals provide more bang for the buck because their margins are so much higher than those for tortillas and tortilla chips. For every case of frozen prepared foods, for instance, Albuquerque Tortilla Co. needs to sell four to ﬁve cases of tortillas to make the same proﬁt. It Just Makes Cents With the relatively high cost of energy and fuel, it’s simple economics that’s driving many tortilla producers to diversify into broad line producers of New Mexican foods. “These days, you must maximize your truck from the smallest delivery truck to drop ships in over-the-road trucks to your warehouse customer,” Chris says. “If you are shipping value-added product, which may be $50 to $60 a case compared to a case of tortillas, which may be $15 to $20 a case, you can see the advantage to a company that can diversify its product lines to get the most out of any delivery or drop ship.” In addition to broadening its product portfolio, Albuquerque Tortilla Co.’s strategy to diversify its foodservice customer base involves being a one-stop shop. With its food processing facility in place, it can supply everything from raw ingredients such as New Mexican green chile sauce for chefs to already prepared custom-made meals for operators searching for convenience. “Whether you are a chef at a large, ﬁne Mexican restaurant who wants to prepare everything from scratch, we can supply you with everything you need, or if you are a smaller restaurant owner who wants to cut out the labor and headaches of all the preparation, we an supply you with everything to ﬁll your kitchen,” Chris says. The company also plans to reformulate its products to ﬁt the nutritional proﬁles for school cafeterias, which have restrictions on the number of calories and amount of fat per serving. Continued on page 16 SFWB1208CLAB.indd 1 11/12/08 1:35:18 PM www.snackandbakery.com 14 Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery - DECEMBER 2008 http://www.clabbergirlb2b.com http://www.clabbergirlb2b.com http://www.snackandbakery.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery - December 2008

Snack Food &�Wholesale Bakery - December 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Now, That’s Haute! Bigger ‘n’ Better But Is It Art? New Products Branching Out Engineering Management Fits to a T Racing to the Finish The Final Word

Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery - December 2008

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