Southern California Enterprise : Success Is Child’s Play in the Pinata Business : Manufacturing: Santa Ana company finds a niche with the product people love to hit.
In an increasingly high-tech world, Oscar Vargas is succeeding with a decidedly low-tech product: He makes pinatas.
Vargas, owner of Pinata Party in Santa Ana, has an electronics degree and worked for years in the computer industry, but he had always wanted to run his own business. He got the inspiration for Pinata Party from his sister, who made pinatas as a hobby and always had a backlog of orders from friends and neighbors.
“High tech is so expensive to get into, and the products change so fast, almost every year,” said Vargas, 41. “I saw what my sister was doing and realized right away that there was a wide-open area where somebody could do well.”
When Vargas opened his shop in 1985 in City of Industry, most of his business was generated by summer birthday parties. But now, he says, holiday sales of Santa Claus likenesses, oversized Hershey’s Kisses--sold under license from the Pennsylvania-based chocolate manufacturer--and other year-end specialties are bringing in revenue from the Latino community and beyond.
“Oscar has the Cadillac of the business,” says David Nadel, owner of the Party City store in Santa Ana. “They’re very special pieces, a unique product to be sure.”
Increasingly, pinatas are finding a market for use as home decorations, not just as targets for stick-wielding youngsters eager for the toys and sweets inside. And if people do buy them for the customary use, Vargas said, that’s even better. “I like it when they get broken,” he said, “because then you have to buy a new one.”
Though the holidays used to be the slowest time for Vargas’ business, “Christmas has really been a good blessing for us,” he said. “We used to have to pretty much shut down in the wintertime because, once it got colder and rainy, we sold less pinatas. Winter doesn’t lend itself to outdoor birthday parties.”
Among the mainstays of his winter business are pinatas used in Las Posadas, a series of processions held between Dec. 16 and Dec. 24. According to Mexican tradition, Las Posadas depicts the biblical story of Joseph and Mary’s search for a room at an inn before the birth of Jesus.
In observances of Las Posadas, the pinatas on hand for children at the end of the processions resemble satellites--spheres with six to 12 arms that originally represented the months of the year, according to folklore.
When Vargas started his business, he knew he could not compete on price with low-cost papier-mache pinatas imported from Mexico. He searched for a way to replicate the more expensive pinatas made of hardened clay, eventually hitting on a solution that blended traditional pinata designs with modern technology.
Armed with some secrets from an aunt in Panama who had been making pinatas for 40 years, Vargas began looking for a molding company that could mass-produce pinatas from polystyrene, a low-cost material that shatters just like clay.
He searched more than a year before he found a manufacturer with the right production equipment. “I’d tell them I wanted a hollow sphere that could break pretty easily,” Vargas said. “They thought I was crazy.”
Vargas first set up shop in the City of Industry but moved to Santa Ana five years ago. During the busy summer months, about a dozen employees apply paint and decorations by hand to the thousands of pinatas that Vargas has molded at plants in Anaheim and Gardena. During the slower winter months, hours are scaled back.
Having the pinatas mass-produced offers another benefit besides low cost: They are of uniform weight and size, an attractive feature for retailers.
“If a store is selling dinosaur pinatas, they want them the same size,” said Vargas, whose pinatas retail for between $20 and $30 apiece. “Otherwise, customers see all the different sizes on the shelf and say, ‘That one’s smaller, so it should cost less.’ ”
Vargas now sells most of his pinatas through party stores but is hoping eventually to land a contract to produce them for Disney and other well-known entertainment companies. Having a license to manufacture giant Hershey’s Kisses, Vargas said, is the first step in that direction.
Nadel of Party City said he thinks Vargas has the potential to sell pinatas nationwide: “When we showed them to our franchiser’s people back East, they loved them.”
But Vargas said he is leery of expanding too rapidly, preferring a slow and steady pace. “We’ve created a track record,” Vargas said. “And little by little, we’ll grow.”
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Pinatas Past and Present
Some facts about the festive containers:
* The first pinatas, which originated in Italy, were shaped like stars and used in Christmas celebrations. They represented the Star of Bethlehem and gifts that the Three Kings brought to the baby Jesus.
* After pinatas were introduced into the Western Hemisphere by Columbus, they gradually changed in shape and significance. Today, they are colored containers typically made from papier-mache or clay in the shapes of animals, flowers or stars. They are covered with crepe paper, then filled with candy, fruit or toys.
* In modern celebrations, the pinata is suspended from the ceiling and children use a stick to hit it until it breaks, spilling its treasures. Pinatas have become traditional in Mexico for birthdays, Christmas and other celebrations.
Sources: “Arts and Crafts of Mexico,” “Kids Explore America’s Hispanic Heritage”
Researched by VALERIE WILLIAMS-SANCHEZ / Los Angeles Times
