New Mexico Chile Task Force

Marketing

"Cautiously Optimistic" Chile Industry Charts Future Course

While the Southwestern chile industry has benefited from recent scientific advances, the road ahead could still be rocky for the region's family-owned farms and businesses. That was the prognosis of more than 50 industry insiders and specialists at a late-September marketing summit sponsored by the New Mexico Chile Task Force and the New Mexico Departments of Agriculture and Economic Development, at the Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces.

By analyzing current labor, trade, market and consumer trends, summit participants predicted that the industry, in five years, would be confronting extreme competition from low-priced imports, increased government regulation and reduced subsidies that would favor large corporate farms over smaller family enterprises.

Despite these challenges, participants were cautiously optimistic about the industry's future. In 1998, when the New Mexico Chile Task Force was formed to address problems facing the industry, many leaders were predicting that the industry would succumb to pressure from global markets by 2003. But in the past five years, efforts coordinated by the Task Force have resulted in efficiency gains and a much brighter outlook. Major milestones include development of mechanical thinning equipment; key management practices; 'Garnet', a new cultivar for mechanical harvest; a prototype chile cleaner and improved communication channels among all industry facets.

"The progress that has been made in the past five years proves that the industry can influence its destiny," says Rich Phillips, Task Force Manager. "This marketing summit is the initial step in determining what actions need to be taken to insure that the industry is in a favorable position in 2008."

While chile has been an integral part of Southwestern culture for centuries, its commercial roots go back only to the 1950s, when family farms began to tap into the crop's commercial potential. In southern New Mexico, the Biad family parlayed five acres of chile, dried on roof tops and south-facing slopes, into a business that contracts 5,000 acres for dehydration and oleoresin production. The Cervantes family combined ingenuity, chile farming expertise, and a pound of Louisiana Tabasco pepper seed to become a major supplier for the Louisiana hot sauce industry. Likewise, "mom and pop" businesses began to expand. Albuquerque's Bueno Foods began selling frozen chile in a small take-out operation in the Baca family store and now markets more than 60 percent of its processed chile products outside New Mexico. Ashley's Restaurant near Fort Bliss, TX, became Bruce Foods as it met the growing demand for the authentic taste of chile from servicemen away from home.

In determining the future direction of the industry, summit participants felt that it was important to capitalize on this unique heritage as well as the region's reputation for high quality chile. They also agreed on the importance of continuing to take advantage of scientific and technological advances in breeding and production and to build on the open communication within the industry.

To stay ahead of the competition in a global trade environment, the group identified the need for constant analysis of pending state and federal legislation, environmental regulation, and labor and trade issues. They also identified the need to explore avenues for developing quality standards, branding, product databases and new markets and products. To address these issues, the Task Force formed a marketing and agribusiness workgroup that includes representatives from the New Mexico Departments of Economic Development and Agriculture, the chile industry and NMSU.

For more information, see Developing New Marketing Strategies for the Southwestern Chile Industry, Chile Task Force Report 11