Interview: Tortillas De Casa

 Tortillas de Casa was established in 2002 Distributes wheat flour and corn tortillas to all states through different distributors, such as Diaz Foods, US Foods, Solera Foods, Reinhardt, etc. Tortillas de Casa sells its product to the largest distributors in the United States.

"Our product is made every day. We have distribution of tortillas retail in all states of the United States, with our Private Brand called Taquera de Casa, as well as in terms of wholesale distribution.". Jose Espina, President of Tortillas de Casa, started telling us.

"This year we have faced tremendous challenges, we are getting ahead of ourselves during this situation, but the challenges have been many. I think the constant has been to stay positive and implement new cleaning measures in addition to those previously established to protect workers, so this way it has been possible to come to the plant daily to turn on the machinery for production; we are constantly on the watch of everything not remotely but in person" Jose  mentioned.  "As essential workers, we had to keep coming to work, we've lost a lot of workers who just didn't return to work when the pandemic started. In some cases, since the children were at home, this situation prevented moms from going out to work and we lost even more staff.

"Different working groups, which are essential for our production were quarantined, the raw material was scarce, and everything was like a chain reaction, therefore all this affected production and sales went down. Mexican restaurants have been the ones that have remained active, their system order to take out has helped our production. I think we're getting better."

Jose continued to explain to us "It is important to mention that security codes and cleaning protocol have increased, this has been for the better and I see that these new security measures and cleaning protocol are here to stay, although this has increased our expenses considerably, we must prevent an outbreak of Covid-19 or any other viruses in the plant..

During the first few weeks of quarantine closure what helped us was the selling of retail product to the stores, the wholesale (Food Service) returned when the restaurants gradually began to open and this helped us to go back with production in almost normal quantities. The products we sell the most are wholesale products, i.e. Food Service”.

"Until now there are still vacancies for new employees who wanted to work with us, we had never had so few people, to the point that we had to lower production. As I said earlier Mexican restaurants have maintained our production which translates into orders for TDC.

The retail line at TDC has been developing in the last ten years with great success” Jose told us.

What vision you have for the future with your different lines and different products? we ask Jose.  "The Food Service product is going to stay strong, it's something that's solid it's not a pass-through product. The same with the retail product, it grows with great acceptance and solidity. It is important to mention that we have a masa (dough) for tamales that is our star product especially this season, it is ready, it has everything, all you need is to start wrapping-up your tamales. We also have a section of frozen products for use of non-conservative retail that sells very well.

Within our variety of tortilla chips, we make different colors to commemorate the different dates that restaurants celebrate with their clientele, such as Cinco de Mayo, The Month of Hispanic Heritage, Christmas parties etc. We go very well and growing day by day! Jose ended with a big smile!

Thank you to Jose Espina – President of Tortillas de Casa! We wish you much success!

Tortillas de Casa
5500 Bucknell Drive Atlanta, GA 30336
Phone: 404 344-6355
tortillasdecasa.com