What’s Going on in the Mexican Milk Industry
In Guanajuato, the state in central Mexico in which I live, the major newspaper AM has started running a business page on Mondays.
Leon and Querétaro are not household names outside Mexico right now. But with between one and two million people apiece they are some of the fastest growing cities in the country. The industrial corridor between the two cities, a stretch of about 130 miles, is filling up with industrial plants, warehouses, and airports.
It seems much of the business is food related, so I pore over the pages. They are a barometer of changing food habits in the country.
And so to milk. On the 1st October, the paper ran an article on Pasteurizadora León. It was founded in the 1960s by a group of dairy farmers. Now it deals with 100,000 liters of liquid a day. It plans in its new plant to jump 500,000 litres a day.
It’s not all milk. Half is in juices and flavored drinks. Half is under contract to companies such as Danone and Hersheys. They do sell fresh milk, but much is UHT (long life, ultrapasteurized), flavored (chocoleón), yoghurt (strawberry or pineapple-coconut), and crema ( the lightly fermented cream that is used as a sauce in Mexico).
The article says nothing about this but I have the impression the competition in Mexico is fierce. Lala, another big company, bought the Parmalat assets in Mexico. Last year the company plastered Mexico City with life-size models of cows painted by all kinds of artists.
A.M. has noting to do with Reforma, you can see it at Grupo Reforma webpage, this is a myth, but truly has nothing and no relation at all with Reforma.
The newspapers of grupo reforma are: el Norte, Reforma, Mural, Palabra and Metro
Thanks Jorge. I’ve edited out the reference to Reforma. I guess I was confused because so much of the editorial page is similar to Reforma. Syndicated columnists, perhaps.
Rachel