A veteran guacamole team has re-entered the produce industry in strong fashion. In May, Fresh Innovations LLC, based in Rhome, TX, opened a new 90,000-square-foot guacamole-processing facility in Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. This plant will enable Fresh Innovations to ship 100 million pounds of avocado and guacamole products a year.
Jay Alley, the company’s vice president of sales, said, “Yo Quiero sales continue to double year over year and our new facilities allow us to keep up with that growth.”
Early this July, the company’s new ¡YO QUIERO! brand signed a five-year deal with the Dallas Cowboys NFL franchise. Alley said specially-marked Dallas Cowboys packages will be offered at retail throughout the team’s wide and populous marketing area. ¡YO QUIERO! guacamole will also be added to the nacho menu at each of the Cowboys’ home games over the next five years.
The ¡YO QUIERO! brand, which translates as “I want”, covers many products offered by Fresh Innovations. Besides guacamole, they offer 100 percent mashed avocado as well as quesos and red salsas.
Alley explained that the all-cheese quesos involve no guacamole and come in a white cheese or a four-pepper yellow cheese “that is to die for!” Red salsa is a new, regular, tomato-based product.
The guacamole flavors are Original Guacamole, Chunky, Avocado Salsa and Spicy. These are all available in two-, eight- and 15-ounce package sizes, with varied counts. All the avocado products are put through the HPP process which ensures great taste and texture without additives and preservatives. Also, the guacamole is mixed in small batches, so the flavor is well blended, and the product is chunky and tastes like homemade. They are vertically aligned and manage the avocado from growth to manufacturing to delivery. The avocados used are selected at the peak of freshness and blended into great tasting products.
Alley said Fresh Innovations thrives because “we are strategically nimble and positioned to cut through red tape to meet retailer needs.”
Furthermore, he said Fresh Innovations is also on a fast track because “people in the industry give us a lot of credit for our previous business venture. Their support has really helped us along.”
Alley is already well-known in the trade not only for his warm, likeable personality, but as the former vice president of sales of Wholly Guacamole.
Alley left Wholly Guacamole, took some time off and then with a team of industry leaders, created Fresh Innovations, the parent company of the Yo Quiero brand.
These industry leaders, Don Bowden, Steve Parnell, and Jeff Morris, used their expertise in avocado processing, to create a small, nimble dip company that is able to provide innovation to the marketplace…hence the name, Fresh Innovations.
Parnell, Morris and Alley all worked together as executives at Albertson’s before they got into the avocado business. Now Parnell is the CEO of Fresh Innovations and Morris is the president.
Tara Murray, who also worked with this team previously, came on board June 20 as the vice president of marketing for Fresh Innovations.
Marketing, sales, shipping, transportation, logistics, customer service and research and development all happen in the firm’s 45,000-square foot Rhome office and distribution center, which is north of Ft. Worth. All guacamole and avocado orders are sent to Irapuato, then shipped to Rhome then distributed, nationally, from there.
Alley noted that Irapuato is an ideal location. It is close to the major avocado producing state, Michoacán, but because it is not in Michoacán, the firm is free to pack Mexican avocados grown in any state. Jalisco, another large avocado producer, is just to the west of Irapuato. Fresh Innovations is vertically integrated, with ownership in some avocado groves. Other product comes from independent growers.
Irapuato has a good work force, which is another benefit of Fresh Innovations’ Mexican location, according to Alley.
