Do It Yourself — Olé!

The growing in-store production of tortillas and tacos requires quality equipment.

Almost everybody knows that salsa now outsells ketchup in the United States, so the popularity of companion Mexican staples like tortillas and tacos is no surprise.

What might be surprising is the emergence in many Yanqui supermarkets of tortillerias and taquerías that rival anything south of the border. There's a preponderance of these Mexican cuisine outposts in the Southwest and California, but the features aren't necessarily limited to grocery stores there. Northeast legend Stew Leonard's, based in Norwalk, Conn., currently has a tortilla program, and retailers from Michigan to Florida feature tortillerias or taquerías, or both.

“The performance has been so great that we have expanded the offering,” says Kristy Nied, director of communications at Chandler, Ariz.-based Bashas', which owns and operates 50 Food City supermarkets in Arizona, in addition to the Bashas' and AJ's Fine Foods banners. “We went from having one tortilleria 17 years ago to now having 22 tortillerias in our Food City stores,” she points out.

Nied adds that among the 22 Food City stores with tortillerias are five commissary stores that distribute corn and flour tortillas to the 28 Food City stores without their own in-store tortillerias. In addition, 39 of the Food City stores have deli departments with taquerías.

The Food City stores have the ability to make 700 dozen corn tortillas an hour and about 250 to 300 flour tortillas an hour, depending on the size. “We have an in-house tortilleria director at Food City who is responsible for training,” says Nied, “and in addition to making fresh corn and flour tortillas, Food City's tortillerias also make chips, taco and tostada shells, and fresh masa [cornmeal dough] for tamales and tortillas.”

Food City tortilla and taco equipment supplier Casa Herrera, based in Pomona, Calif., manufactures a compact in-store flour tortilla system designed for supermarket and restaurant use that forms, presses, bakes and cools tortillas, and can also make pita bread, chapatis and pizzas. The TP1515 and F06014 models feature a cooling conveyor with three stainless steel conveyor belts with extended incline discharge. The oven length is 72 inches, and the electrical panel contains stop/start pushbuttons, a temperature readout, and a temperature control with a special motor control. There are adjustable controls for pressing force, press time, press-down speed, press belt and discharge belt speed. Press-area safety is provided by electrically interlocked guard limit switches and emergency stop buttons. There are also six heaters per platen for optimal heat distribution and lower amperage use.

Mi Pueblo Food Center, based in San Jose, Calif., has 20 Mi Pueblo stores in northern California, including the Bay Area, the Monterey Peninsula and Central Valley. “Tacos and tortillas are staples for our core customer base,” says VP of public affairs Perla Rodrigues. “Taquerías and tortillerias have always been part of the Mi Pueblo concept. All our stores have taquerías, and, except for a few of our smaller locations, all of our stores have tortillerias.”

Rodrigues compares the emergence of tacos and tortillas as new staples of the American diet to the acceptance of salsa, which she calls “the new ketchup,” adding, “Our customers, who come from a variety of cultures and places, are all enjoying our delicious tacos and tortillas on a daily basis.”

Lubbock, Texas-based United Supermarkets has three Amigos stores and 11 Hispanic-focus stores under its banner, according to Juan Enchinton, director, Hispanic initiatives, who says that all of the Amigos stores have taquerías: The Amigos stores in Lubbock and Plainview, Texas, have corn and flour tortilla machines, and the Amarillo Amigos store has a flour tortilla machine. There's a written training guide for the machines, which come from BE&SCO, Superior Food Machinery Inc. and Lawrence Equipment, depending on the sales volume.

BE&SCO (Bakery Equipment & Service Co. Inc.), based in San Antonio, numbers among its customers Kroger, H-E-B, Walmart, Stew Leonard's, Whole Foods, Fiesta Mart and Swanson's, as well as United. Manufacturing VP Aaron Escamilla notes that the company's most popular machine for supermarkets is the Beta 900 flour tortilla machine, which he says “is simple in its complexity. It isn't overly engineered or overly complicated. Customers love to watch their food being made fresh, and the carousel display on the Beta 900 shows the tortilla dough getting flattened, cooked, flipped, cooked, flipped, and then puffed up steaming and coming off the conveyor ready to eat. The Beta 900 produces up to 900 tortillas or flatbreads per hour, and our largest model, the Grandemax, can produce up to 1,800 per hour.”

Superior Food Machinery Inc. in Pico Rivera, Calif., produces equipment for the production of both corn and flour tortillas. The corn tortilla line includes both a light- and heavy-duty masa [dough] feeder, corn mills from 5 to 75 horsepower, a corn washer-elevator also available in drum type, 200- to 1,000-pound capacity cooking tanks, corn tortilla and corn tortilla chip ovens, and 3-, 5-, 7- and 9-tier cooling conveyors.

Superior's flour tortilla line includes a heavy-duty stainless steel mixer, a medium-capacity dough ball slicer/ divider, a complete automatic proofing and flour processing line, a dough ball divider/scaler/rounder, a high-output production hydraulic flour press, a high-speed heavy-duty heat insulated flour cooking oven, and 3-,5-,7- and 9-tier cooling conveyors.

South El Monte, Calif.-based Lawrence Equipment's Legend Series of four tortilla ovens has been created to meet the demands of wholesale, supermarket and restaurant operations. Its flour tortilla oven No. 63, for instance, can produce from 400 to 2,000 dozen tortillas an hour and has special built-in critical control point monitors, which feature a programmable dwell or rate indicator, a digital temperature readout, and a gas pressure readout for each individual heat zone.

The oven's standard features include an outboard drive, heavy-duty insulation, externally adjustable turn-around pans, spring-loaded oven belt tensioning, and combustion systems available in either Lawrence-designed efficient atmospheric or eclipse pre-mix systems.

As tortillerías and taquerías become an increasingly familiar part of the U.S. supermarket scene, the equipment for their production will evolve apace, becoming even more specialized for food retailing.

¡Viva la machina!

Pizza in the House, too

At the same time that more and more supermarkets are producing their own tacos and tortillas, retailers are increasingly preparing gourmet, from-scratch pizzas, formerly the domain of the ubiquitous American pizzeria.

One company leading the in-store pizza parade is Milwaukee-based Roundy's Supermarkets Inc., whose banners include Pick 'n Save, Copps, Rainbow, Metro Market and Mariano's.

At the present time, according to Roundy's director of public affairs Vivian King, the company has authentic stone pizza ovens in three stores: a Mariano's Fresh Market in Arlington Heights, Ill., and Metro Markets in Brookfield and Mequon, Wis. “[Roundy's CEO] Bob Mariano wanted an authentic stone oven to cook Napolitano-style pizzas,” King says. “These are gas ovens, not wood-burning, for consistent heat control and operator accuracy. They have been in the stores since the opening of each store, as they are fully assembled and the store is essentially built around them.

“These ovens are American-made in Bellingham, Wash., by Wood Stone Ovens,” continues King. “They were chosen for their quality in cooking and durability. They can cook approximately four pizzas at a time. They can also cook breads, meats, vegetables and egg dishes — basically anything. These ovens will be built into all of our Mariano's Fresh Market stores.

“Our customers love the pizza ovens,” she adds. “They like watching the pizza bake, but they especially love the taste of the pizzas. Our Metro Market-Mequon has even created a Thursday-night pizza special that is very popular with families.”

Wood Stone's Mountain series of stone hearth ovens come in four sizes, with cooking and baking surfaces from 9 to 45 square feet. Each oven is available in wood-fired, wood-and-gas combination, and gas-fired models.