Orange, California-based Hormel has new additions to its Herdez brand’s refrigerated salsas.
Hormel debuted the three flavors – traditional mild, traditional medium and chipotle medium – in May. In a discussion with The Shelby Report, Chris Monahan, brand manager for refrigerated dips, attributed the expansion to consumer research.
“We found that consumers really shop in two parts of the store for guacamole and salsa. One being in the produce department and the other is in deli,” he said.
“Those consumers are different. Typically, a deli consumer isn’t going to go shop in produce and vice versa. So we saw an opportunity to find that deli consumer in the deli.”
All of the formulations of the salsas are based on authentic recipes from the Fundacion Erdas, a library of old recipes from Mexico, according to Nahall Kohan. Kohan is innovation manager at Megamix Foods, which is a Mexico-based joint venture between Hormel and Herdez. The recipes help tie the salsas to authentic cooking.
“It’s got the fresh tomato and it has different kinds of peppers – chipotle peppers, jalapeno peppers – and it’s the consistency that we know consumers love,” Kohan said.
Along with the salsas, the Herdez brand is touting its line of guacamoles, which come in two flavors – traditional mild and traditional spicy. Herdez also offers the mild in a four-pack of single cups.
Hormel says that Herdez has focused on maintaining fresh ingredients in the products’ shelf life through what Monahan described as “high-pressure technology,” or HPT.
“When you think about preservation methods to begin with, we use high-pressure technology to keep our items fresh for their shelf life,” he said. “We don’t use any added preservatives, no citric acid. I think the HPT is really one of the things that help set us apart.
“Basically, think about taking an item and putting it at the bottom of the ocean. All of that pressure acts as a food safety process for us to ensure that our items can stay fresh for the shelf life.”
While the product can brown within 24 hours after opening, Monahan noted that the fresh ingredients are worth it.
“We don’t have these preservatives. If it were to stay green, you’d wonder why it had. When you open a fresh avocado, it gets brown quickly. Just like our product, it goes brown,” he said.
For more information, visit hormelfoods.com.
