Sunmaid Growers of California listed 12 SKUs in the Mexican Market delivering the first purchase order for 800 cases with an estimated export value of 28,000 USD in March 2024 and available to Mexican consumer on April 1st, 2024. Raisin Administrative Committee provided industry-wide consultations during 2023 providing market information, importers contacts and facilitating communication for the first contact.
The listing process into the country took over one year and RAC was able to provide industry information to Mexican Retailer “La Comer” with 15% national market share with 13 high-end retail stores named “City Market”, where the product will be immediately made available, to eventually distribute in the rest of 72 stores with potential sales of 200,000 USD for full distribution in this retail chain, with the potential to increase volume once other retailers list the product portfolio in 2024.
Product listing will be complemented by a generic Retail Marketing campaign managed by RAC and it is expected that this will be the first step to develop raisin individual packs as a snack category in Mexico that has been a part of the U.S. Culture for many years, opening the way for more uses of California Raisins in that country.
As part of the 2023 program, SUSTA organized a trade mission to Houston. Texas and Atlanta, Georgia for 4 Mexican buyers to meet with nearly 40 companies from the Southern United States that are members of SUSTA (Southern U.S. Agricultural Trade Association) to develop commercial opportunities between both countries.
The buyers traveled to both cities being received by the Texas Department of Agriculture and the Georgia Department of Agriculture, coordinating meetings between buyers and sellers in a Table-top format, combined with visits to supermarket stores and other suppliers. Trade leads were generated that we hope will result in sales in the near future.
Espacio Food and Service is the most important food show in Chile. It was held from September 27th to 29th in Santiago de Chile, Chile where the key contacts of the industry get together to share trends of products, services, and technologies.
California Milk took part for the first time in the show to explore the Chilean market and its potential on the dairy industry. This time CMAB participated in the US Pavilion, giving us an excellent booth location.
During our time in Chile, we visited the main supermarkets in the country to know the varieties available, store formats, and start evaluating business development opportunities.
In the show California Milk found interest of over 100 importers, distributors, and restaurants specifically for the cheese category like cream cheese, mozzarella, cheddar, and artisan cheeses. Also, we started to develop relationships with at least 5 key contacts of the retail, foodservice and brand reps.
“We value your visit to know and evaluate Chile. We hope to move forward and be able to have many Real California Milk products in Chile and South America. The response of the contacts after the show has been very positive and encouraging. We’ve already had 5 meetings.” -Renato Poblete, Deli Casei
This year the Idaho Potato Commission participated in the 37th edition of Abastur from August 31 to September 2, 2022, as an exhibitor. Abastur is the largest business platform in Latin America, where IPC successfully had contact with the most important suppliers and buyers for the foodservice industry.
On the 3-day exhibition, more than 80 key leads from the industry were generated at the Idaho Potato Commission booth, thus achieving new business opportunities. Likewise, more than 300 tasting samples were offered with the objective that the event’s attendants could enjoy the authentic flavor of Idaho potatoes.
The California Milk Advisory Board once again participated in the largest Expo for Supermarkets in LATAM, Expo ANTAD. A leading professional event for the Retail, Hotel and Restaurant sector in the food industry supply chain, took place May 17-19 in Guadalajara.
It was an event focused on generating business meetings, publicizing the attributes and benefits of California Dairy Products, as well as the support we provide in marketing and communication matters.
We presented different brands of artisan cheeses such as Point Reyes, Sierra Nevada, Fiscalini, Vintage, Bellwether and Nicasio Valley.
Bob Leonard, Vice President of Pacific Cheese, presented the California Select Farms brand cheeses and we also prepared pizzas as part of the tasting activity throughout the 3 days of the expo.
Thanks to the event, we generated leads, we were able to introduce the full range of Vintage cheeses in the Mexican market and generate business opportunities for specialty products.
California Raisins was in charge of organizing the forum “Innovation in bakery for retail”. For the first time, California Raisins introduced an innovative online forum format, attended by numerous VIP guests, moderated by Darinel Becerra, editorial director and partner of Retailers.mx, and led by Marc Misseri, independent chef and consultant, with a 40-year trajectory in gastronomy, being the creator of La Balance in Mexico and serving as Innovation Director at El Globo until the end of 2021.
One of the theme lines of the event was that “innovation is going back to the basics with iconic products from the world’s bakery, with re-studied formulas aligned to the new demands of the consumer”, as Marc Misseri Bastide pointed out, and at the same time, he exposed the concept of “reasoned and reasonable abundance, since we are making better nutritional products every time; but in retail, sometimes we don’t give them the significance they deserve”.
This webinar aimed to reach an audience of more than 300 bakery professionals and talk about the different ways in which California Raisins can be included in the baking industry, with two of the most important opinion leaders as speakers.
The renowned Chef, Irving Quiroz, addressed different topics on existing trends at baking in this free webinar, obtaining more than 2,300 download requests, and exceeding 660 attendees, which included bakery professionals and gastronomy students.
On November 24th, in coordination with the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, we celebrated a Thanksgiving dinner which representatives of supermarkets, restaurants, media in Mexico attended, in addition to Thomas Reott, Consul General of the United States in Tijuana.
“The objective was to show the richness and variety of food produced in Idaho, as a reflection of its natural and industrial characteristics that allows it to create more than 185 commodities and that place it in the top 10 of the main agricultural producers in the United States” (siempre la noticia, 2021)
The Idaho Russet potato was highlighted, as well as the yellow onion.
The Chef in charge of developing recipes was Javier Plasencia with more than 50 k followers on Instagram.
Chef Javier Plasencia created a 5-course menu incorporating Idaho ingredients in a unique way:
The California Raisins Administrative Committee participated in Expo Pan (the pioneer exhibition for the bakery, pastry, pizza, ice cream and coffee industry in Mexico) with over 500 visitors.
Chef Irving Quiroz prepared a recipe using and mentioning the versatility and quality that California raisins provide to the bakery.
The event, in addition to the digital campaign on Expo Pan’s Facebook (with 55k followers), was supported by a campaign with a newsletter, publication in a digital magazine and banners on the Alfa Editores site, with a reach of 434,400 impressions.
To support this activity, Irving Quiroz conducted a Webinar with Larousse Cocina called “Baking Techniques to Attract New Customers”, where bakery professionals were invited and were taught the business side of the industry and how to be more attractive to consumers, this campaign achieved a total of 2,314 registrations.
A trade mission was coordinated between 23 exporters and 33 importers in Mexico. 123 business meetings were accomplished between suppliers and buyers with the objective of creating commercial relations. This mission was coordinated on behalf of WUSATA.
The import of samples from the 23 participating American companies was coordinated to later provide them to the participating buyers, 123 meetings were coordinated as well as support with translation and market information.
Each company had an average of 5 meetings with importers.