bake - March 2012 - PAN38

SHOPPERS INSIGHT

Hispanic Shopper Insight
Detroit lost more than 237,000 residents in the latest U.S. Census Bureau last year, but there was one significant bright spot: The city’s Hispanic population grew by 1,500. Detroit’s largely Hispanic southwest neighborhood remains stable, helped by new immigration, affordable housing and low barriers of entry, according to the Detroit Hispanic Development Corp., a community organization. Detroit’s Hispanic population has more than doubled in the past 10 years. Mexicans came in droves during the 1990s and continue to trickle in. There are roughly 400,000 Hispanics in Michigan; half of them live in Detroit. Many work in construction, landscaping and the service industry. But hundreds have opened food-related businesses. Sitting in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge, a busy border crossing in the U.S., is an up-andcoming Detroit neighborhood, one with beautiful homes and manicured lawns. It’s known as Mexican Town. The buildings are renovated and the main street bustles. There are bakeries and family-owned grocery stores. Nearly 30 new Mexican restaurants have sprung up here in just the past few years. Experts say Detroit’s Mexican community has seen a 34 percent increase in small business development in just the past three years. Jim Johnson, who teaches economic development at the University of North Carolina and studies the Hispanic business community, says Mexican immigrants are among the most entrepreneurial, spurring significant new business growth.
MORE HISPANIC CONSUMERS

What is happening in Detroit is reflective of what’s happening on the national scene. Without the influence of Hispanic spending and population patterns, foodservice industry sales would have declined during 2008 through 2010, according to Latino Foodservice Trends in the U.S., a just-released report from Packaged Facts. Hispanic share of consumerdriven restaurant sales has ticked upward from 12% in 2006 to 12.7% in 2011, although Hispanic share of limited-service sales decreased slightly over most of this period. From 2005 to 2025, the U.S. Census has projected 78% growth in the Hispanic population, compared to 15% growth in the general population. Put another way, some 70% of the estimated 47.2 million in population growth during 2005-25 is attributed to Hispanic population growth.

While the fastest growing segments of the Hispanic population will be those age 45 or over, under25s are still expected to comprise 43.2% of all Hispanics, underscoring the long-term importance of younger Hispanics to the restaurant industry. According to Geoscape, data from the 2010 Census provide insights to the ethnically diverse United States. According to the 2010 Census, 308.7 million people resided in the United States on April 1, 2010, of which 50.5 million (or 16 percent) were of Hispanic origin. The Hispanic population increased from 35.3 million in 2000 when this group made up 13 percent of the total population. The majority of the growth in the total population came from increases in those who reported their ethnicity as Hispanic. More than half of the growth in the total population of the United States between 2000 and 2010 was due to the increase in the Hispanic population. The Hispanic population increased by 15.2 million between 2000 and 2010, accounting for over half of the 27.3 million increase in the total population of the United States. Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43 percent, which was four times the

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bake - March 2012

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