Consider the tortilla. Made from corn or flour, but essentially grain and water. Served fresh or deep fried. A delivery system for shredded pork, salsa verde, or the chicken and bacon McWrap. Tortillas have been a staple in Mexico for millennia. More recently, they’re devoured in the U.S. by the billions, no more exotic than a hamburger bun. Which begins to explain how Veronica Moreno, a Mexican immigrant with no high school education, came to run a multimillion-dollar corporation.
Moreno emigrated to the U.S. from the Mexican state of Coahuila in 1977. She was 21, newly married, and had no special expertise in food manufacturing. What she did have was the good sense to realize that the tortillas sold in American stores couldn’t match the taste and texture of the ones she made at home—and the good timing to launch a tortilla-making venture as America’s appetite for Mexican food was about to take off.
In 1988, Moreno opened a small factory in Atlanta, selling $10,000 worth of corn tortillas to walk-up customers and Mexican grocery stores that first year. Moreno projects that her company, Olé Mexican Foods, will hit $275 million in sales this year. It will produce 26 million tortillas. Every day. Laid flat, the daily output would stretch from New York City to Mexico City with 300 miles to spare, says Edgar Moreno, Veronica’s son, who handles marketing for the company. “I never imagined I was going to make so many tortillas,” his mother says.
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