Felipe Núñez
President of the Board, Jugos del Valle
DAIRY NOW
In 2011, we entered into negotiations with Santa Clara. In May 2012, we closed that deal and now it is part of the Coca-Cola System through Jugos Del Valle. We were missing something, which was dairy, and for that reason we wanted to incorporate Santa Clara.
ACCESS ALL AREAS
We occupy around one-third of each segment in which we compete, and we compete in all kinds of segments including juices and teas. Fruit is easily obtainable here, and making juice at home is common.
STREET LEVEL
When you enter into this kind of category, trade is very important. We have a strong domestic channel through the small retailers you see on every street.
Jesús Carlos Valencia
General Director, Barry Callebaut
GRAND OPENING
We started operations in Mexico in January 2009 with the grand opening of the plant here. Before that, we had been shipping from our plants in the US to our customers. We decided to come together with Hershey’s, one of our main customers in Mexico, and open a plant here.
COMPOUND & REAL
We have two main markets in chocolate: real chocolate and compound. We produce both here, as we do everywhere in the world. It’s about a 50-50 split between the two. We have major customers for chocolate as well as compounds.
NICHE MARKET
The volume is still small; however, growth is huge. The chocolate market may be growing 2%-3% per year, but the niche market we are in is growing double-digit. You can see the evidence for this in the supermarkets, there are more and more sugar-free products every day.
Héctor Hernández-Pons Torres
President & General Director, Héctor Hernández-Pons Torres
SMALL BEGINNINGS
The company will celebrate its centennial in 2014. It started as a distribution company and 15 years later, in 1929, my grandfather joined. In 1947, we made the first joint venture with McCormick & Company. As far as I know, this joint venture is one of the oldest in Mexico.
RELEVANT IN THE MARKET
We export mainly to the US market, to our company MegaMex. But we also have a small business in Central America. However, our main objective still remains the US market because Mexican foods have become very relevant in that market.
CHANGING TIMES
In Mexico, since housewives are increasingly joining the workforce, the need for convenient products to cook and eat is becoming more relevant. This is also reflected in the expansion of convenience stores in the country, where high rotation products and easy to use foodstuffs are key.
Fabián Gosselin
CEO, Alsea
GOING PUBLIC
One of the reasons for going public was to take full advantage of the franchise model. The fast-food and quick-service restaurant (QSR) market at that time was developing under the strong leadership of US brands such as Domino’s Pizza and Burger King. We decided to take the company public in order to buy other franchises from Burger King and Domino’s Pizza.
STRONG BRANDS
We have to realize that we pay for strong brands to do their job in terms of innovation and product development. In general terms, we make 80% of our sales through eight brands, but they develop global menus by themselves.
SOURCING LOCALLY
We started importing everything 20 years ago, but we have been moving into local sourcing since the beginning, especially after 1995 with the peso’s devaluation against the dollar. We now source around 80% from local producers and 20% through imports.
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