Abogados

Hispanic purchasing power jumped 160 percent over the past decade, to $542 billion in 2002, according to the latest data from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) in Washington. Already the nation's largest minority group, the US Hispanic population surged 13 percent between April 2000 and July 2003, to nearly 40 million individuals, the Census Bureau reported recently.

Supermarket chains have recognized this trend and have responded, especially by adding new ethnic foods to the product mix, says Todd Hultquist, spokesman for FMI. They have a big financial incentive for doing so: Hispanic shoppers spend more on groceries per week than typical shoppers, he notes.

"Part of this is due to the fact that mealtime is a cultural facet of Hispanic households," he explains. "They cook from scratch, they cook at home more often, they eat out a lot less, and that means they're shopping in stores more often."

Hispanic shoppers make between 16.1 and 18.3 visits to a grocery store per month, about twice the 8.8 times per month for non-Hispanic shoppers, according to FMI.

In addition to stocking foods from a number of Spanish-speaking countries, chains also have made an effort to better serve Hispanic customers by employing Spanish-speaking workers and adding signs in Spanish.

Hispanic consumers welcome such efforts, says Santiago Ogradon, executive vice president of Castells and Asociados, a Los Angeles marketing and advertising firm that focuses on the Hispanic market. But he also suggests that supermarkets stock Hispanic foods with similar items throughout the store, rather than relegating them to a section with signs such as "Hispanic Foods" or "Ethnic Foods."

"It helps people find the food OK, but it's not very inclusive," Ogradon says of separate sections. "They'd rather shop the store like anyone else." He notes that Hispanics want to find their spices in the spice section and their beans in the bean section.

Hispanic consumers also don't care about fruit or vegetables lined up on "fake grass with the sprinklers on it," he adds. Instead, they prefer produce in crates. "That is a visual clue that it is fresh off the farm or fresh from the harvest."

Despite some progress, the grocery-store industry has reached out too slowly to the Hispanic community, Ogradon contends, and Hispanic-owned stores are moving in to fill the need. For example, the large Mexican supermarket chain Gigante plans to open 71 stores in the United States by the end of the year.

Source: (C) 2004 The Record, Bergen County, NJ. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved