United Supermarkets has expanded its manufacturing operations as well as introduced two new tortilla products.
New machinery has allowed the company to produce 9,600 flour tortillas every hour.
“The real driving factor behind this is making a quality product,” said Mike Springer, national sales manager of Praters Foods, the company’s manufacturing arm. “We were challenged to deliver a product with better quality.”
Scott Nettles, Senior Director of Perishables, saw an opportunity to reclaim lost sales following a tortilla brand manufacturer’s decision to change its formula. “There was a brand of tortilla we carried where the feeling was the quality had dropped off,” said Jay Parker, who oversees Research and Development at Praters.
“The ‘Mi Pueblo’ recipe is your basic table tortilla but with superior quality,” Nettles explained. The second, “Tejano Style,” represents an improvement over a home-style product.
“We’ve tried to improve the quality of both products by limiting the preservatives,” Nettles explained. “The Mi Pueblo tortilla has a 21- to 30-day shelf life at retail, while the Tejano product will have very little preservative and a seven-day shelf life.
United will be able to control not only the per-package tortilla count, but also the size of the tortillas, allowing for a wide variety of products from which to choose. A 10-inch, burrito-size tortilla is currently available in 10- and 20-count packages under both labels. A six-inch fajita-size product will be available soon as retail bags are developed.
