The taste of home

The National Wheat Foundation reports that of the 2 billion bushels of wheat—give or take—produced annually, the domestic market only consumes about half as food.

We know from the American Bakers Association the total economic impact of baked goods produced and sold specifically in the United States was $423 billion, or 2.28 percent of the U.S. GDP in 2016. That total accounts for nearly 800,000 direct jobs, wages of $44 billion and tax revenues of $53.48 billion.

But those are the larger scale bakeries like Pillsbury, Sara Lee, Bimbo, Wonder and other commercial brands. Retail sales of fresh bakery products is about $24 billion annually, much of that from small, local bakeries.

Latino “panaderias” are a niche market of fresh bakeries that is growing with every new immigrant who wants a familiar taste of home. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2016 American Community Survey shows approximately 11.6 million Mexican immigrants resided in the United States in 2016. Mexicans accounted for 26 percent of all U.S. immigrants, with more than half living in California or Texas.

Whether you call them “panaderias” or “tortillarias,” these bakeries play an important role in Hispanic and Latino culture and their local economies.

“Food is a huge part of Hispanic culture, much like it is with so many other cultures,” explained Sylvia Melendez-Klinger, a founder of the Hispanic Food Communications and Scientific Advisory Board for the Grain Foods Foundation.

“The Latino community spends most of its income, more than any other segment of the population, on groceries,” she added. The Spanish Conquistadores and then the French and European colonists brought wheat and their recipes to the Americas, and the indigenous population adapted those recipes and traditions and made them uniquely their own. In the Caribbean, for example, you see more of a French influence in traditional breads, whereas in Mexico there may be more of Spanish influence.

“Bakeries are really huge among Hispanics, it’s some place that they go to just about every day,” Melendez-Klinger said. Culturally, while families may make their own tortillas at home, they prefer to go to a panaderia for fresh baked goods.

Robert Fernandez is the manager of Juarez Bakery in Wichita, Kansas, and he knows his family’s bakery is a key point in the day for many people in his community. He’s the fourth generation to bake, both in Mexico and now in Kansas. Fernandez’s father started their family bakery in Wichita 23 years ago when he was still working in construction to support the family.

“He would take his paycheck, and buy flour, sugar and eggs and stay up all night Saturday and make bread with my grandfather in our house,” Fernandez remembers. “There would be a line of people outside of our house on Sunday morning, waiting for bread and my mom would sell it out of our kitchen.” Like many Latino bakers, Fernandez learned through apprenticeship—a tradition also brought by the Europeans.

Today, Juarez Bakery has two locations in Wichita and on any given week may use 20 to 30, 50-pound bags of wheat flour in its traditional conchas, bollilo rolls and the popular tres leches cakes.

“It’s a little piece of home, and a bakery is actually a very big part of Mexican culture,” he said. “What we do here isn’t just pastry, but it’s also part of someone’s life.” He said he looks out for regular customers, checks up on those who live alone or who have health concerns, and makes special pastries by request for others. The bakery is part of not just everyday life, but also celebrations and holidays. Customers aren’t just regulars, they are family, Fernandez added.

Besides feeding the body, panaderias can also open the door to a culture and feed the heart. Melanie Eddy may not be the target audience for panaderias, but this southwest Kansas farm mom and Kansas Wheat Commission spokesperson is one of their biggest advocates.

Her family raises wheat near Syracuse, Kansas, and for years she’s sought out bakeries of all shapes and sizes to taste how her family’s grain gets baked into a finished product. She stops by the panaderias in Garden City and other towns once a week or even more for special occasions.

“I think of them as very much a part of our community and I think it’s wonderful that they are using our product,” she said. She said she buys bollilos rolls for sandwiches because their bulk holds up really well with hot or cold fillings. Her family likes some of the sweeter breads like conchas. And the colors, textures and tastes are what bring her back time and time again.

“The bakers sometimes change at the bakeries, and you can tell because each one has their design they like to use on the breads, their own ways of cutting the tops to mark them,” she said. It’s almost like their thumbprint.

She also likes being able to buy a fresh baked product that supports someone locally and uses flour made from wheat grown by families like hers.

For more than six decades, American wheat farmers have formed relationships and built export markets overseas for their grain. Recent emphasis has been on developing the market in Latin America, resulting in a 40 percent market share for U.S. wheat in the region to the tune of 368 million bushels imported each year.

That strategy is—and will still be—key to America’s overall marketing strategy for wheat.

But, with the recent change in the overseas grain-trading atmosphere, perhaps now is the time to build demand closer to home. Fortunately, there’s a growing domestic niche market for U.S.-grown wheat flour right here in our backyard.

Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached at 620-227-1807 or [email protected].