Sale of Mexican Sauces Show Many Like It Hot

The sale of Mexican sauces, primarily salsa and picante , last year surpassed those of ketchup in the United States--a dramatic indication of the evolution of American tastes.

Salsa manufacturers across the nation are catering to the craving for spicier sauces. Among the North County entrants in the taste test are Chachies in Oceanside, the Herdez label produced by Festin Foods of Carlsbad, and, on a smaller scale, the fresh salsa created at the Carlsbad Ranch Market.

Chachies

Perhaps the best-known brand of locally manufactured fresh premium Salsa is Chachies in Oceanside. It has more than half of the San Diego County market, according to company President Robert Stuck.

Stuck acquired the company from the original owners who began making fresh salsa in 5-gallon buckets, and eventually turned their winning family recipe into a million-dollar enterprise. Stuck, a former construction company executive in Phoenix, his wife, Donna, brother and sister-in-law are partners in the enterprise.

“I always wanted to be in the food business,” said Stuck, an avowed gourmet cook. “I learned the hard way and made mistakes, but the lessons were well-learned.”

Stuck and his associates soon found out about the finer points of tomato and peppers, both of which products enter into the fresh salsa made daily at Chachies’ manufacturing plant. “The taste of our tomatoes depends on the soil they grow in, on the weather, and even on the age of the plant,” he says.

Since the formula changes slightly day to day, Stuck begins his mornings testing batches of fresh salsa to ensure a consistent flavor.

Sometimes, production is interrupted during the day to adjust the degree of “hotness” or to compensate for slight differences in taste. “Our customers let us know if they can taste any change,” says Stuck, who has Chachies’ toll-free number printed on the underside of each container of salsa. Besides minor adjustments, Chachies’ original recipe and its preparation remain essentially unchanged since it was introduced.

“These were picked last night,” says Stuck, showing off case upon case of fresh products. Blemished vegetables are quickly discarded.

A small army of workers hand-wash tons of tomatoes and peppers daily, cutting each in half to examine the flesh, and check every bunch of fresh cilantro for impurities.

The pungent aroma of onions hand-chopped by the sackful floats over another corner of the warehouse.

The vegetables are fed into large mixers, blended and stirred, and finally poured into large containers. The only trace of automation is the filling and sealing of individual containers of salsa.

Cases of the product, bound for sales points nationwide, are kept at a constant temperature below 40 degrees with the help of a computerized monitoring system.

“You can’t let your guard down when making a fresh product,” says Stuck. “Quality is always a state of urgency.” The high acidity of tomatoes allows an unopened container of Chachies’ salsa to have a shelf-life of 60 days, says Stuck. The flavor is best immediately after opening, however.

Chachies’, P.O. Box 4053, Oceanside, CA, 92054. Wholesale only. Salsa available in refrigerated section of most major supermarkets.

Carlsbad Ranch Market

Freshness is also the key to the salsa Vince Grillo’s sells at the Carlsbad Ranch Market.

The market’s proximity to the beach makes it a popular stop to assemble a picnic of fresh fruit and vegetables, fruit drinks, and freshly baked breads--and of course, a container or two of fresh salsa.

Salsa and fresh chips are always on display at the store to tempt customers into sampling the freshly made product. Vince Grillo, who purchased the neighborhood produce store from his father three years ago, tries to buy most of the ingredients for his salsa from local growers.

The Grillo family, which once had eight produce stores in the Los Angeles area, gleaned the idea for their salsa from two of their Mexican-born employees.

“We just kept on making it,” says Grillo. Customer requests sometimes require Grillo and his crew to make batches of fresh salsa up to four times a day. “We’ve even had people buy it to send to Texas,” he said.

The basic recipe includes tomatoes, garlic, cilantro and peppers accented with a touch of lime, he said. A word of caution accompanies the open container of salsa available for tasting: “This salsa may become habit-forming.”

Carlsbad Ranch Market, 6118 Paseo Del Norte (across from Hadley’s), Carlsbad, CA, 92009. 438-3202. 16-ounce container of salsa, $3.99.

Festin Foods Corp.

Salsa is big business at Festin Foods Corp. in Carlsbad. The company is a joint venture between manufacturing giant McCormick & Co., best-known for its spices and extracts, and the Herdez Group, the largest manufacturer and distributor of food products in Mexico.

Herdez (a contraction of the name Hernandez) joined forces with Charles P. McCormick in 1947 and founded McCormick de Mexico, which still commands the leading share of the Mexican market in a variety of beauty and food products--one of them, Herdez’s Salsa Casera (Spanish for home-made.)

Herdez began exporting its products to the United States in 1970, and, in 1977, an American counterpart, Herdez USA was established to better cater to a developing Hispanic market. The U.S. company changed its name to Festin in 1984, a word meaning a festive occasion in Spanish.

The salsa sold in the United States has its origins in a brand new plant located in Ensenada.

“Herdez is the No. 1 brand name in Mexico, and our salsa is still made the way a Mexican housewife would make it,” says Karen Mullick, associate product manager.

The original recipe was developed several decades ago by a member of the Hernandez family, the owners of the Herdez label in Mexico.

Tomatoes, peppers and onions are purchased from all corners of Mexico. While Mexican consumers don’t mind purchasing the shelf-stable salsa in cans, those on this side of the border prefer it in jars. Thus, Herdez’s salsa casera, a fresh salsa that comes in varying degrees of piquancy, is found either in ethnic sections or regular shelves of most American supermarkets.

Another popular Herdez product is Salsa Ranchera, a Mexican barbecue sauce that can be used as a dip or as a topping for fajitas or tacos.

Festin Foods Corp. 2045 Corte del Nogal, Carlsbad, CA, 92009. Herdez sauces are carried by major supermarkets, including Von’s, Ralph’s and Lucky’s.