Thread: NC - Abasto Serves the Hispanic Food Industry

Abasto Serves the Hispanic Food Industry
Web site, planned magazine to connect business, suppliers

By Richard Craver | Journal Reporter

Published: February 16, 2009

Helping the Hispanic food industry cook up more business is the goal of a local company that is launching a Web site and monthly trade magazine.

Hispanics Marketing Consultants Inc. of Winston-Salem already has the Web site -- www.abastoonline.com -- operating. It has plans to print at least 40,000 copies of Abasto magazine in May. Abasto is the Spanish word for supply.

The goal is for the free magazine to be circulated to 40,000 Hispanic business owners and vendors nationwide and be supported solely from advertising. The magazine will have 100 pages in full color.

Abasto officials believe that their magazine is the first of its kind serving the Hispanic food industry.

"We are very aware that a lot of print media is struggling to make ends meet in this economy," said Don Calhoun, the principal of the consultant agency.

"But there are a number of reasons to have confidence why this magazine will work."

Calhoun said that the focus is helping Hispanic business owners better connect with suppliers, vendors and customers, as well as offering economic and networking tips.

"Since we're writing the magazine in Spanish, we wanted to highlight that we are supplying vital business information to every business owner or manager who is part of the food-supply chain for Hispanic foods," said Francisco Camara, the editor-in-chief of Abasto.

Camara previously served for seven years as the editorial director for Que Pasa, a Spanish-language newspaper in Winston-Salem.

"We are intent on providing best business practices in every arena of running a company," Camara said. "We want to keep things practical and actionable."

Calhoun, who also founded a tortilla-distribution company in 1995, said that the idea for the magazine came from conversations with Hispanic business owners.

"They work very hard and have been successful," Calhoun said. "But we found that there was a knowledge gap for them, one that prohibited them to grow their businesses into greater profitability.

"Many manufacturers and distributors of Hispanic foods also have not had a way to communicate efficiently to this large and growing Hispanic population of business owners."

Part of the magazine's strategy includes soliciting articles from professors at the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University as well as local contributors. The magazine also plans to offer internships to college students interested in exploring a career in the Hispanic business sector.

Calhoun said that the articles will contain "basic language" to make the points of the articles easier to understand.

"We want to give them the information they need to make better decisions, such as the price of raw materials, the state of the housing market, interest rates and the unemployment rates," Calhoun said.

"That information, which we take for granted for ease of obtaining, is sometimes not that accessible to the Hispanic business owner."

Calhoun said he plans to attract display ads from national and regional food suppliers and vendors and also run classified ads in a clearinghouse format.

Sal Bravo, the owner of Las Estrellas restaurant on Silas Creek Parkway, said he believes that the magazine could be a benefit to the Hispanic food industry "because there's really nothing around like it for business and economic news for the Hispanic community."

Jose Lopez, the owner of The Latino Journal of Sacramento, Calif., said he is intrigued by the idea of a trade magazine focused on the Hispanic food industry.

"The restaurant business is a big chunk of the Hispanic business community," he said.

Lopez said that local diners should benefit from the magazine's efforts "considering how entrenched Hispanic food is becoming in the American diet."

"Anything that helps these restaurant owners and food-market operators to run more efficiently is likely to be passed down to the consumer," he said.

Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2...industry/news/

You can comment on the article at the bottom of the story. Please comment as you see fit.

Note the statement "The goal is for the free magazine to be circulated to 40,000 Hispanic business owners and vendors nationwide and be supported solely from advertising."

Most likely they are being subsidized the the government for being a minority business, and they probably have a lot of illegals working for them, and since illegals receive government money, this business will NOT be supported solely from advertising, but from legal citizens tax money.

Hispanic this, Hispanic that, Spanish here, Spanish there. This is crazy insane! We now have in teh United States an industry bent on balkanizing our country. This is going to end in tears!

Hispanic this, Hispanic that, Spanish here, Spanish there. This is crazy insane!

Exactly.

The goal is for the free magazine to be circulated to 40,000 Hispanic business owners and vendors nationwide and be supported solely from advertising. The magazine will have 100 pages in full color.

Small Businesses getting Bailout money?

Originally Posted by alamb

Hispanic this, Hispanic that, Spanish here, Spanish there. This is crazy insane! We now have in teh United States an industry bent on balkanizing our country. This is going to end in tears!

Your absolutely alamb. The term "balkanization" is quite appropriate to describe what's going on here in this country!

When and how will it end?

Richard Craver

If these people really want to be part of that American dream then they ought to do their business in ENGLISH! American citizens are real tired of this special treatment of these people which by the way most of their population is ILLEGAL.

They cause a great drain on this countries economy and social benefits that they really do not qualify for,but do recieve due to forged documents in many cases.

Yes we are a country of immigrants but the Hispanic are the only ones that seem to DEMAND everything. While waving a Mexican FLAG! These people are so damn hard working why don't they go back to their country and make changes there. This is AMERICA !

You got my point by now. I do not feel another mgazine written in Spanish needs to be distributed. I could go on about various issues with these Spanish speaking persons but will stop here.

Thank you

I wrote to this reporter and I hope others do the same to let the news media know how we feel about this special treatment.
mailto:rcraver@wsjournal.com