Designing for the Hispanic Demographic P

COVER STORY Crossing Borders: Designing for the Hispanic Demographic By Kimberly J. Decker For despite its oversimplification, Salsa: a case study Contributing Editor the story encapsulates a larger truth So does salsa’s success send a mes- about the changing flavor of North sage to food manufacturers about the undits in search of a pithy American life: Hispanics are the coun- value of courting Hispanic-American metaphor for the Latiniza- try’s largest, fastest-growing ethnic food dollars? Yes, but the message tion of the United States minority. At nearly 40 million strong isn’t as straightforward as manufac- P often seize upon the para- already — 44 million, if you count turers might think. The northward ble of the two competing Puerto Rico — the demographic is spread of Hispanic culture may have condiments. As the story goes, the year increasing at a rate of 7%, or 500,000 set the stage for salsa’s stellar sales, was 1992 and Packaged Facts, New households, annually, outpacing the but Hispanic-American consumers York, reported a 14% rise in salsa sales U.S. Census Bureau’s 1999 forecasts. haven’t necessarily driven those sales over the previous year. But while the And with their growth rate expected themselves. spicy sauce raked in a record $640 mil- to exceed the general population’s by “The biggest consumers of canned lion, sales of ketchup, America’s best at least a factor of 10 in coming years, or jarred salsas are Anglos,” says seller for nearly a century, lagged behind Hispanics will account for one-third Veronica Kraushaar, consultant to Texa at a mere $600 million. To be fair, the of the nation by 2030. Translated into Sweet Citrus Marketing Inc., Mission, higher price of salsa relative to ketchup dollar amounts, that works out to a TX, and principle of Vanguard Ethnic softens some of the statistic’s punch. But collective annual buying power esti- Marketing, Scottsdale and Nogales, ever since, everyone from demographers mated at $580 billion, approximately AZ. In the May 1997 issue of The to media executives to the very food 8% more of which goes to weekly Atlantic Monthly, Michael J. Weiss manufacturers who produced the condi- household food purchases in non- reported that demographic surveys ments in the first place accepted salsa’s Hispanic homes. ascribe the greatest U.S. salsa con- Photo: Kraft Food Ingredients supremacy as a sign of things to come. sumption to two groups: “upscale With the basic elements of dairy, gar- nishes and salsa, an appetizer can appeal to a wide range of cultural groups. How- ever, a simple accent of flavoring can spin it in any number of original directions. developing products to please the Hispanic market. “You have so many question marks hanging over you when you’re designing for Hispanic Ameri- cans,” says Leigh Enderle, market research manager, Givaudan Flavors, Cincinnati. First question: Who are Hispanic Americans? In the strictest sense, the term “His- panic” unites as an ethnicity those who trace their ancestry to the countries of the Spanish-speaking world. But given Photo: Danisco USA, Inc. the reach of Spain’s colonial empire, such a classification hardly narrows things down, lumping together nearly Anglo families, who can afford to buy Further complicating matters, salsa 20 nationalities spread across the tropics, a condiment that is more expensive — Spanish for sauce — can mean any- mountains, desserts, coasts and grass- than ketchup and who appreciate salsa’s thing from the caramel poured over lands of the western hemisphere. low-fat content,” and what he calls ice cream to a scorching paste made Such a broad definition inevitably “downscale Latino families,” for whom from dried chiles and vinegar. The masks local distinctions — and in the salsa is a staple that they’d rather pre- chunky concoction of fresh tomatoes, process, confuses outsiders and cre- pare from scratch. onions, and cilantro familiar to us rep- ates tension among those so broadly That way, Latinos can calibrate the resents only a sliver of the salsa spec- defined. “Some level of resentment sauce’s flavor to their own tastes, which trum — and a predominantly Mexican of the term exists for some members may differ markedly from store-bought one, at that. More accurately called a of the population identified as His- salsas. As Joe Bavone, R&D manag- pico de gallo, this particular salsa panic,” says Don McCaskill, vice pres- er, Kerry Americas, Waukesha, WI, wouldn’t strike much of a chord with ident for research, Riceland Foods, explains, North American consumers immigrants from South America or Inc., Stuttgart, AK. “Those individu- adopted salsa early in their explo- the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, who als make a case that it generalizes when, ration of Latin-American cuisines, so are more likely to equate “salsa” with in reality, several distinctly different the product “was never really devel- a parsley-speckled chimichurri, or a populations exist: those of Mexican, oped here with Latinos’ tastes in mind. citrusy mojo criollo. It’s no coinci- Puerto Rican and Cuban descent; Cen- It was essentially homogenized to dence, Weiss notes, that two U.S. cities tral American refugees and immigrants; American tastes to appeal to a broad- with atypically low salsa consump- and South American immigrants.” er spectrum of non-Latinos.” In fact, tion rates — Miami and New York Even the Spanish heritage that unites he quips, North American salsa may City — also host sizable Cuban and them survives only to varying degrees have supplanted ketchup because, Puerto Rican communities. and in a mixture of dialects. Moreover, “essentially, it’s just another variety One name, many cultures Latin Americans have often distin- of ketchup” — a sweetish, mild, toma- So while demographers might see guished themselves from each other to-based sauce. “You can get mild, the saga of salsa as a snapshot of by reacting against their shared inher- medium, and hot now, but even the America’s future, food manufactur- itance. Local responses to the Roman hot isn’t necessarily as hot as you would ers would be wise to heed it as a cau- Catholic Church, race, politics, capi- find in parts of Mexico.” tionary tale about the complexity of talism and the sheer weight of pre- Mexicans have made cheese a staple in traditional dishes, like enchiladas. How- ever, Americanized products often sup- plant queso fresco with blends of yellow American and Cheddar cheeses. and post-Columbian history have all carved out unique identities for Latin Americans that defeat the notion of a monolithic Hispanic culture. “Bolivians and Peruvians are strong- ly influenced by a mixture of Incan and Spanish culture, whereas Colom- bians, Venezuelans and Panamanians show an African influence,” explains Lionel Vil, R&D director for season- ings, Kerry Ingredients. Spain’s for- mer Caribbean colonies also cling to African traditions, while visitors to Chile and Argentina comment on how Photo: Sargento Foods, Inc. European their city squares and tem- perate climate feel. And in Mexico and Central America, the legacy of full scope of the genus Capsicum. This Guatemala and Peru, is the food real- the Aztec and Mayan empires con- culinary coming together laid the foun- ly spicy,” notes Denyse Selesnick, pres- tinues to permeate spirituality, litera- dations for a cocina mestiza, or “mixed ident, International Trade Information ture, architecture and the timbre of cuisine,” that defines the Latin-Ameri- Inc., Woodland Hills, CA. Even within everyday life. can table to this day. Such standard Mexico, a region like Veracruz relies fare as wheat-flour tortillas, rice-and- more on capers and olives than sear- La cocina mestiza bean dishes, crispy corn snacks fried ing chiles to season its foods. “You’ve Latin America’s cuisines tend to in pork fat, and the whole panoply of got fiery chiles, and you’ve got chiles bend to the same winds as culture. Mexican cheeses persist as edible arti- that give flavor without being hot,” And when Columbus made landfall facts of the Columbian Exchange. Selesnick continues. “So spicy food on what is now the Dominican Repub- But they don’t persist everywhere, in Mexico is very different from what lic, a gust blew through that would or with the same popularity. For exam- you’d find in Costa Rica or Caracas.” change the way the region — and the ple, although Mexican cooks use cheese As it happens, though, Mexicans world — would eat forever (this phe- in everything from soups to salads to account for nearly two-thirds of the nomenon is known in some circles as stuffed chiles, the same isn’t true in U.S. Hispanic population, with Puerto the “Columbian Exchange,” as described other Hispanic countries. “If you look Ricans and Cubans coming in at only in a book written in 1972 by social to Cuba or Puerto Rico, when they 10% and 4%, respectively. And accord- historian Alfred W. Crosby). At the use cheese, it’s often just as a snack,” ing to Givaudan resources, more than potluck where the Old World met the says Barbara Gannon, vice president 90% of our Latin-American restau- New, Europeans brought wheat, rice, of corporate and marketing communi- rants bill themselves as “Mexican.” olives, citrus, bananas, sugarcane and cations, Sargento Foods Inc., Plymouth, Thus, much of what we know about livestock — including cattle, sheep, WI. “It’s not usually incorporated as a Latin-American cuisine we’ve learned pigs and chickens — while the indige- vital ingredient in a main dish.” from our neighbors to the immediate nous populations contributed what had Similarly, contrary to popular U.S. south. sustained them for millennia: corn, opinion, not all Latin-American foods But geography, climate, immigra- potatoes, cassava, chocolate, vanilla, leave a lingering capsaicin burn.

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