PHOENIX October 19, 2004 (By Yvonne Wingett, Arizona Republic) - They come for el sabor, the flavor of their Latin homelands.

The tiny Hispanic meat shops multiplying in Arizona remind them of the carnicerias on practically every corner throughout Mexico, their display cases filled with blood-red carne asada, miles of tripe and flesh-colored bits of pig skin.

In the early 1990s, there was just one carniceria in the Valley. Today, thousands of Latinos shop at an estimated 125 shops that have taken over abandoned storefronts from Chandler to Peoria, prompting chain grocery stores to take a second look at their own meat cases.

The carnicerias fill the Latino need for spiced flanks, flat meats and regional cuts just as ethnic meat markets in Boston, New York and Philadelphia cater to Germans, Italians and the Irish. The small shops run counter to American culture, where shoppers buy mostly packaged meat at giant grocery stores.

"I come here almost every day," Jesus Mendoza said after stepping up to the meat counter at Carniceria Sonora in Tempe and ordering 7 1/2 pounds of lenguas de res, or cow tongue.

"I get my special cuts. You feel like you're in your hometown. In the (regular) grocery stores, they don't understand."

Grocery chains are taking notice of the carniceria model. Some are stocking meat coolers with beef heart and marinated chicken; others are stacking shelves with Latin coffees and salsas to help lure the nation's fastest growing ethnic group.

Food City supermarkets, which target the Hispanic market, monitors carnicerias across the Valley to help measure markets and analyze their own product lineups.

The chain, operated by Bashas' Supermarkets, has noticed a "minor" impact on the bottom line from carnicerias and sells marinated cuts from its own carnicerias.

Robert Ortiz, Food City's vice president and director of merchandise, watches where carnicerias pop up to help determine shifts in demographics in neighborhoods across the Valley.

"It's sort of a gauge, it tells me that those customers are here," said Ortiz, who occasionally pops into the small markets to measure business. "If they weren't doing well, they wouldn't be popping up everywhere. They're in . . . central and west Phoenix. They're showing up in Mesa, Chandler, all over the place."

Grocers won't discuss sales information for competitive reasons, but in a nod to demand, some of Arizona's 150 Safeway stores now carry chorizo, thin cuts of beef and animal organs such as beef heart, says Kerry Luginbill, director of public affairs.

"What we don't carry is a wide range of marinated products," which are popular with Hispanics, she says. "We do try to adjust accordingly, but the stores aren't going to be geared in its entirety to a certain demographic."

 

A taste of home

 

Part butcher shop, part convenience store, the growth of carnicerias is fueled by a fast-growing immigrant community that craves candies, mixes, spices and condiments from the desert of Nogales to Oaxaca's jungle.

The mom-and-pop shops are doing well with an old product, turning a profit while providing new arrivals and Latino families with their own private meat racks and regional cuts, shoppers and market experts say.

The old T-bone standby won't cut it for these carnivores: They want thin-cut skirt steak to barbecue and shredded chicken and beef for tostadas and to stuff tamales.

Pizza, cereal and hot dogs, Valentine Flores buys at Fry's. But when it comes to chorizo, tortillas and queso fresco, the 24-year-old warehouse worker waits in line at Carniceria Sonora in Tempe.

"I've been here most of my life, but I still come here," said Flores, a native of Hermosillo, Sonora, who now lives in south Phoenix. "It almost tastes like Mexico. This is as close as you're going to get."

Indeed. The pink, blue and yellow piñatas hang above shelves of Bimbo bread, packages of tostadas and containers of mole sauce. Just like in Mexico. Mexican rock group Maná blares from overhead speakers. Just like in Mexico. Customers roll up for fresh, hot tortillas. Just like in Mexico.

Oscar Jiménez, the son of a Mexican rancher, opened the fourth carniceria in the Valley a decade ago with his store at 48th Street and Southern Avenue in Tempe. Back then, he lost so much money he almost closed for good. But now he's doing more than $1 million in business a year with racks of meat and pan dulce. It's been so lucrative, he opened stores in south Phoenix and Peoria and plans a fourth.

Most customers are first-generation Hispanics with ties to states in northern Mexico, the country's leading beef growers. Surprisingly, he says, Anglo customers have caught on and now make up 30 percent of sales.

"Saturdays and Sundays, the machine doesn't stop," he said, waving to a meat slicer. "We can't fill the demand."

 

Niche market

 

The growth of carnicerias parallels population growth and buying habits and meets cultural expectations, meat distributors and market experts say.

Arizona's 250 shops, mostly mom-and-pop owned, stretch from Flagstaff to the state's border with Mexico. The petiteness of the shops is part of the allure: butcher shops with the convenience of a Circle K.

"That's the kind of environment they're used to," says Harry Garewal, president and CEO of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

"The neighborhood stores. Folks don't like to go into the big markets and walk all the way to the back to get their meat. They go to the meat counter, get what they need and go on," he said.

Carnicerias tap into the first-generation and non-native Mexican consumer, those shoppers who generally buy groceries needed, market experts say.

"They live on a day-to-day basis," said Nereyda Lopez-Bowden co-owner of a Hispanic advertising and public relations agency. "They're not going to buy a lot of food and freeze it."

Carne fresca, is why Isela Ramirez shops carnicerias, despite slightly higher prices on products other than meat. And they remind her of the open-air mercados of her native country.

She studies the crimson meat through the glass display case at her neighborhood butcher shop.

That piece of bistec is too thick, she says, too thick for fajitas. She scrutinizes another flank, while her husband, Trinidad Flores, waits.

He's patient: He understands the almost fanatical ritual of picking out the just-right piece of meat. That's it, she says, the razor-thin piece.

"Here, you can get the meat like you want it," says Ramirez, a mother of two. "I never shop in the supermarket. . . . Here, the fit, the size of the store and the products are the same as Mexico."