Most U.S. food makers and supermarkets are fooling themselves with delusionary claims that they’re serving the Hispanic market. If they take an honest look at their product line, they’ll realize they are aiming straight at the heart of the average Texican, third generation Mexican-Americans who have become largely acclimatized to life north of the border. More often than not, U.S. producers are missing a critical distinction.

Here is the heart of the problem: saying, “I’ve got a line of foods developed for the Hispanic market” is like saying, “I’ve got a line of foods developed for the European market.” Or Wolfgang Puck claiming he’s got the Italian market wrapped up because he sells a chicken topped pizza out of the supermarket frozen foods case.

Trying to sell burritos to Argentineans is like trying to sell bangers and mash to Greeks or wiener schnitzel to Spaniards. Bangers and mash and wiener schnitzel are definitely European foods but they don’t translate well across homeland borders.

What we have in North America is a variety of cuisines native to Latin American countries and a few cuisines that have been combined, digested and regurgitated in a form peculiar to certain regions of the U.S. The Mexican cuisines are all here, of course, and so are the Caribbean cuisines – Cuban, Jamaican, Haitian, etc. And we get mixtures such as Tex-Mex in Texas and something called Floribbean in south Florida.

Here is where most market researchers miss the mark. They throw everyone with a Latin surname in the same boat and row it to Cancun. Let me quote: “As mainstream food sales mature, supermarkets and food makers see the Hispanic market as the big growth segment. In 2003, 39 million Hispanic American consumers in the U.S. spent $64 billion on food,” according to the Food Marketing Institute. “Hispanics spend 17.5 percent of their income on food, compared to 13.7 percent for the rest of the population.”

And just which Hispanics are they talking about? Do Cubans spend as much on food as Jamaicans? Do Mexicans shop in the same places as Brazilians? Do Puerto Ricans eat the same thing as Ecuadorians?

The answer to those last three questions is NO! And they all don’t eat tacos, either.

To be honest, most of that research reflects the Mexican market and that kind of growth makes American food companies lust after a greater piece of the pan blanco market but they’re too late and too “unauthentic.”

Hispanic consumers, especially new immigrants, want authentic products. Food companies that import products and retailers that sell them will lead the way. The one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work. Never did, never will.

Some U.S.-based supermarkets are taking the lead. H.E. Butt Grocery Co. is a smart retailer that learns how to adapt to its changing markets quickly. Operating out of San Antonio, they have the good luck of being located dead-center in the Tex-Mex universe and, with help from the 20 stores they operate in Mexico, they were the first to figure out what their predominantly Mexican customers wanted. HEB now stocks their shelves with the real stuff bought from importers, small wholesalers and Mexican-owned U.S. companies that have products Mexicans know trust

The real marketing powerhouses are the Hispanic-owned bodegas that have served every Hispanic community in America’s urban areas long before the major U.S. food processors and retailers discovered the Latino market. They’re not letting their unique selling proposition go by the wayside just because American heavyweights like Pillsbury and Kraft are busy trying to heat up the marketplace, either. The Bodega Association, which represents over half of New York City’s 13,000 bodegas, is fighting back by creating its own brand of ethnic food, importing house-branded products from Mexico, Costa Rica, Columbia, and Ecuador.

They’ve known for a long time that there is a huge variety of nationalities hidden in the term “Hispanic.” Until the American food companies get past the tortilla curtain in their boardrooms and learn to look a lot further south than the Rio Grande, the bodegas won’t have a lot to worry about.

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Chuck Jolley is a marketing executive who's been associated with the food industry for over 25 years. He's helped develop advertising and public relations programs for Cryovac, the world's largest flexible packaging company, and published MEAT&POULTRY, the leading trade magazine in the meat and poultry industry. He's worked with major companies in the meat, poultry, seafood, baking, dairy and fresh produce industries.Contact: crjolley@msn.com