My Trip to the Supermercado

This week out task for the class was to go to El Burrito in St. Paul and find a product and write about it.  We were tasked with picking an item, ask questions of workers in the store about the product, figuring out how did it get there, where did the materials come from and how did NAFTA affect this item.
The item that I picked were fried corn tortilla chips (totopos) these are my wife's favorite, it reminds here of our trips to Mexico where they make them fresh.  Although these are not as good as fresh ones they are not salted and are thick, so they are good for dipping in guacamole or salsa.  The product I chose at El Burrito was made in Chicago IL, so as you can imaging it would be hard to equate this to anything to do with NAFTA.
Luckily earlier that day just before class I went to my local Mexican grocery or supermercado in South Saint Paul called "La Merced".  I had been there a few years before  but didn't really remember what is was like this is a small place with stuff packed in there like sardines.  I asked the nice lady behind the counter (in English) for something authentic candy to provide for the class.  Of course this place is authentic and she couldn't speak enough English and I enough Spanish to effectively communicate.  With the lack of communication we had going she called a younger person out to assist, this young girl was bi-lingual and was a great help in bridging the communication gap.  She asked what it the purpose was and what I was looking for.  She effectively communicated back and forth to find an authentic Mexican candy I could provide for the class.
The product I chose was called Vero Elotes made by the Dulces Vero company, it was a lollipop made up of a strawberry hard center and coated in chili.
Below is a picture and link to the companies website:
http://www.dulcesvero.com.mx/vn_2010/s_i_corporativo.html

 

I thought the sucker was an interesting combination of sweet and spicy and found it to be quite good especially when you get to the hard strawberry part.

The Dulces Vero company is purely a Mexican company and there is a lot of information on their website link I provided above.  In my opinion this would be one company that actually benefited from NAFTA because it had nothing to do with corn production and farming.  I could see some cost increase in the sugar used but the lack of tariff and increase of Latinos in the United States would have benefited the company.  Since the company is based in Mexico and all products are produced there the workforce used in the production of the lollipops directly benefit the Mexican people.  I couldn't find exactly how the product makes its way to shelves in the US, I would suspect that they are shipped by truck.
Like I mentioned with all the disparity of NAFTA and the effects on Mexico I think this product and company is one of the shining stars that came out of it.
Barry