Taco Bell's Invasion of Mexico is Welcome

Mexican customers welcome the "American Food", but a taco stand in Tijuana says "Bring it on!!"

Taco Bell re-opened in Mexico after their initial entry and retreat 15 years ago; with a new spin this time around the company now has locations in Mexico City and Monterrey, and it plans to open 300 more restaurants throughout the country.

Sure, Taco Bell tacos are nothing like Mexican tacos, so they'll be called tacostadas. As in folded tostadas. Creative. I'm sure they'll be mildly successful considering it's American food and different. They'll be adding a few new items to the menu such as ice cream and french fries.

But how will Taco Bell be received in Mexico? A Tijuana-based taquero talks a little trash: "Competition? Please," he said. "Personally, I like the Jack in the Box tacos. Now those are good tacos. How come those guys don't come here?"

From the San Diego Union Tribune:

Americanized tacos returning to Mexico
By Hiram Sotoand Penni Crabtree UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

TIJUANA – Taco Bell is making a run for the border, reintroducing its Americanized version of Mexican cuisine into Mexico for the first time in 15 years.

K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune
Are Mexicans ready for traditional fare from a Tijuana stand (top) to share the culinary stage with Taco Bell?

NANCEE E. LEWIS/ Union-Tribune
But the fast-food chain may not find it easy to peddle tacos in a country that claims bragging rights for perfecting them.

Marcos Morales, who was enjoying unos tacos de carne asada in downtown Tijuana yesterday when he heard the news that Taco Bell is coming to Mexico, said he'll never change his street tacos for ones with a hard shell, ground beef, tomato and sour cream.

“It's not that it's bad, but it's just different” said the 29-year-old factory worker. “People here are just more used to the Mexican flavor. And the food at Taco Bell always seems to need salt or pepper or something.”

Adrián Beltrán, a 34-year-old taco shop worker at the popular Tacos El Gordo in this city's Rio Zone, said there is no competition between traditional Mexican food and the products Taco Bell offers.

“Competition? Please,” he said. “Personally, I like the Jack in the Box tacos. Now those are good tacos. How come those guys don't come here?”

If those on the street are trying to take Taco Bell's re-entry in stride, some cultural purists in Mexico are decidedly miffed.

The taco, peddled by colorful taquerias and basket-toting street vendors on nearly every corner, holds a place of honor in the national cuisine. So some in Mexico regard Taco Bell's latest foray here – the chain hastily withdrew after failing to take off when it opened in Mexico City in 1992 – as presumptuous, if not a little surreal. Which, they grudgingly concede, may be why it could succeed.

K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune
Traditionalists in Mexico enjoy the style of tacos served up by street vendors such as Benjamin Honzalez, who was working at his stand in Tijuana yesterday. “It's like bringing ice to the Arctic,” said pop culture historian Carlos Monsivais. “Taco Bell wants to take advantage of the perception that if something comes from the U.S., it tastes better, that a country that has been Americanized is willing to Americanize food that is central to its cuisine.

“It is an absurd idea, and given that it's so absurd, it may just be successful in upper-class areas,” Monsivais added.

Taco Bell – a unit of Louisville, Ky.,-based Yum Brands Inc., which is also the parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut – is taking pains to soothe ruffled cultural pride by distancing its offerings from traditional Mexican fare.

The fast-food chain, which in 2006 achieved the No. 6 ranking among the top 100 U.S. chain restaurants by promoting its menu to Americans as authentic Mexico, is doing an about-face south of the border.

In its first store in Monterrey, which opened last month, Taco Bell is advertising itself as quintessentially “American,” with a menu that offers french fries and soft-serve ice cream.

And the Americanized taco – the crunchy, meat-filled corn shell sold in San Diego and other U.S. cities as a Taco Bell taco – has been renamed a “tacostada” in Mexico. It's a made-up word that is a play on tostada, which for Mexicans is a hard, fried disk of cornmeal always served flat, with toppings.

Even Taco Bell's slogan in Mexico – “Es Otra Cosa,” or “It's Something Else” – is meant to reassure Mexicans that this is not their mamacita's taco.

“What we are bringing to Mexico is not Mexican food, it's our exciting quick-service restaurant brand,” said Rob Poetsch, a spokesman for Yum Brands. “We feel the timing is right, and we've done quite a bit of consumer research to validate that this goes beyond product. It's about value and convenience – that's the universal appeal.”

Antonio Zambrano, a 42-year-old businessman who was having a meal at one of Tijuana's many KFC outlets yesterday, said many Mexicans will like Taco Bell “precisely because it is different.” “Plus, sometimes you're looking for more than the food,” Zambrano said. “You also want good service, you want to be served quickly and you want to have a meal in a clean environment.”

Poetsch declined to say when or if Taco Bell will be introduced to Tijuana or the rest of Baja California. The company has announced plans to open up to 10 stores in Mexico in 2008 and expand to up to 300 stores.

Anayancin Llanes, 35, and her son Maximiliano, 4, take in the fare from the recently opened Taco Bell in Apodaca in northern Mexico. Though the menu would be familiar to Americans, tacos are called "tacostadas" in a nod to their differences with the traditional Mexican dish.

Despite some inevitable cultural confusion, some fast-food industry experts predict that Taco Bell will find a market abroad among Mexicans and other foreign consumers who are hungry for U.S. brands.

In Mexico, other food chains have been wildly popular. Among the most successful has been Starbucks, which has opened more than 150 stores in five years, even though its venti chai latte costs almost as much as a day's minimum wage.

The secret? Another all-American tradition – good old advertising, and plenty of it.

“In America, we are very influenced by marketing and advertising, and in Mexico, it's likely to be just as effective,” said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, a Chicago-based food service research and consulting firm. “Taco street vendors will have an authentic product, but they can't compete with the breadth of the Taco Bell menu.”
Tristano said many U.S. restaurant chains, faced with sluggish domestic sales and concerns over trans fats and other health issues, are looking abroad to boost sales.

Yum Brands has been expanding overseas, and its goal is to have 800 stores in its international division by the end of this year. The company reported Monday that third-quarter profits rose 21 percent in its international division, and 28 percent in China. In contrast, U.S. profits rose 1 percent for the three months ended Sept. 8.

Yum Brands' Pizza Hut launched 4,770 pizzerias in 90 countries and territories at the end of last year's third quarter, compared with 7,500 domestically. Pizza Hut has found a popular following in India, and it has more than 225 pizza restaurants in more than 50 Chinese cities.

One notable country where Pizza Hut has not made inroads is Italy, another nation fiercely protective of its native cuisine. In 2004, the Italian Parliament granted protective status to the pizza and imposed rules governing how they are made.

Arturo Casas, a 57-year-old taco shop worker in Tijuana, predicts that Mexico won't be so stuffy. Taco Bell isn't a threat, he said, but rather a different type of food more along the lines of hamburgers and hot dogs.

Casas said he is looking forward to cheap burritos, hard-shell tacos, yellow cheese, lettuce, sour cream and sliced black olives – ingredients that would make most Mexican grandmothers cringe.

“Mexicans,” he said, “will now be able to taste authentic Mexican food from the U.S.”