March 11, 2005
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SPECIALTY CHEESE — Los Altos Food Products strives to make a variety of high-quality Hispanic cheese.

By Kate Sander

CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif. — Los Altos Foods is a testament to what retailers and market analysts have been saying for several years now: the popularity of Hispanic cheese is on the rise with no signs of waning.

Founded by Raul and Gloria Andrade in the late 1980s, Los Altos Food Products is a family-owned business focusing on manufacturing more than 10 Hispanic-style cheeses such as Cotija, Queso Fresco and Panela as well as Hispanic-style sour cream.

The company started out small. Raul Andrade had put together a cheese plant in Mexico before moving to the United States, where he and Gloriadiscovered a lack of availability of Mexican cheeses for the growing Mexican immigrant population in California. To fill that niche, they began importing cheese from Mexico. Soon, they began manufacturing their own cheese in Southern California at their new company, Los Altos Food Products. The name is derived from a popular and successful cheese region in Mexico, Los Altos Jalisco.

That was three plants, two decades ago and several cheeses ago. At first, with partners, the Andrades operated two small companies, not wanting to mix fresh and aged cheeses. But by the early part of this decade, the company, which has had to move several times due to outgrowing its current space, settled all of its cheeses under one roof in City of Industry.

Now once again the company is looking for new space.

“We’re almost at full capacity,” says Raul and Gloria’s daughter, Alin Andrade, who grew up helping in the business and now is general manager.

“Just since 2002, it’s grown incredibly,” she says of the company, adding that Los Altos Foods hasn’t up to this point done major advertising, instead relying a great deal on word-of-mouth.

“I cannot complain about the growth,” adds Raul Andrade with a smile.

Recently, however, the company has started working harder to get its name out there for consumers to see. While Los Altos Foods always had a good reputation and was known among retailers and distributors, consumers didn’t necessarily know that the cheese they were purchasing was made by Los Altos Foods, says Bill Finicle, vice president, sales and marketing.

Because all fresh cheeses sold in a deli can look a lot alike, Los Altos Foods needed a way to differentiate itself, Finicle adds.

To set its product apart from competitors, the company, which has been selling its Queso Fresco in a bucket instead of cryovac because it is so fresh, also developed a custom bucket. There are inverted V-shaped grooves that go into the center of the buckets, so when the cheese is turned over and displayed there is an inverted logo. In this way, Los Altos’ fresh cheese doesn’t blend in with other fresh cheeses that may be available from any given Hispanic market, Finicle says. The company’s Queso Fresco, which it calls La Cubeta, also is often simply sold by the bucket in wooden-looking plastic buckets called cubetita, which is “little bucket” in Spanish.

Though La Cubeta only is available under the Los Altos brand, the company continues to sell cheese for private label as well.

With these changes, customers are beginning to know the cheese by sight and are coming to associate it with the company’s name. The company has assisted this process by developing signage and upgrading its logos, and attributes some of the recent growth in demand to these efforts.

Still, Los Altos is focusing on selling its product based on quality, not extensive marketing programs. The cheese may be more expensive per pound than some competitors’ but it holds its own just fine, according to Finicle.

Finicle says that it is important for the company to focus on promoting both its flavor and sanitary quality because that is where its strength lies. The company is able to do this with a fairly small sales staff, he notes.

“We don’t really participate in the normal sales game,” Finicle says, adding that while the company’s staff do attend trade shows, they aren’t into some of the trade relations activities others participate in.

“In general, what I like my customers to know is that we have a quality product like it was made in Latin America and that it’s of very sanitary quality,” Raul Andrade says.

Sanitation is critical, particularly for Hispanic cheese. From time to time, Hispanic cheese has gotten a black eye in the media, particularly in Southern California, when there have been instances of homemade cheeses being illegally sold to consumers and illnesses resulting.

“It can be very dangerous if you aren’t carefully clean (in the plant),” Andrade says. “A major budget item for the company is quality control.”

The overall approach appears to be working for Los Altos Foods. Business almost has doubled over the past four years, Finicle says. He says the company is the third-largest Hispanic cheese company in California and holds the No. 1 or No. 2 spot in most areas of Southern California.

The vast majority of the company’s customers are Latin, Alin Andrade says, noting that the Anglo population in general doesn’t know much about more than a couple of Hispanic-style cheeses. Finicle adds that Latin retail stores do a great deal of business with the company. However, there is interest from big chains that have a Latin consumer base as well as restaurants catering to Latin customers. There often is more demand for Hispanic-style cheese than there is cheese available, notes Finicle, who has just opened his own Latin ice cream business to meet the growing demand for another Hispanic dairy product in Southern California.

Los Altos Foods up to this point has focused primarily on the Latin populationfrom Mexico, though eventually it would like to offer more cheeses with a Central American flair. Alin Andrade notes that not all Hispanic cheeses are the same, and Central American lines would have different formulations and recipes. Expanding in that area seems like a good idea at some point, but right now the ability to do so comes back to the sticking point of lack of capacity.

Raul Andrade says he would like to see the company in new manufacturing space within the next year. However, he doesn’t want the company to grow simply for the sake of being large and, in fact, he doesn’t expect it ever to be a giant.

He notes that while Hispanic cheese is growing, it’s still a small piece of the total cheese industry. And within that Hispanic cheese portion of the industry, Los Altos Foods is only one player.

“We’re a specialty cheese company,” he says, “and I want to have a little chunk of the pie. I don’t want to take everything. I want to make enough to supply the customers who want our cheese.

“I want to grow normally. Being happy is important, too,” he adds.

CMN