Tortilla Factory on Clinton agenda
Family-run firm is stuff of the American dream

Two decades ago, Josie Ippolito had calluses on her hand from making tortillas until 3 in the morning. Then, she would fall asleep at school a few hours later. Ippolito and her two sisters now own a southwest Phoenix factory that makes 840,000 tortillas daily for customers that include 400 Valley businesses.

It's stuff of the American dream, and now, a presidential visit.

White House aides said Friday that President Clinton will visit La Canasta Mexican Food Products Inc. at West Jackson Street and 31st Avenue on Wednesday to illustrate an example of a success story. The factory has used federal programs to help it grow and become self-sufficient. Clinton will be visiting Phoenix to talk about federal programs to help businesses in the city's enterprise zone, which stretches from McDowell Road to Southern Avenue and from 35th Avenue to 32nd Street.

Ippolito and her two sisters, Diane Mendoza and Linda Rios, were scurrying among meetings Friday afternoon after the announcement of Clinton's visit. "It's going completely crazy around her," Mendoza said as workers whooped in the background.

The three sisters are in the forefront of what the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce calls an "incredible wave of success" among small- and medium-size businesses owned by Latinos in the Phoenix area, riding the coattails of the country's huge economic expansion.

Ippolito, a petite woman with a rapid, assembly-line gait, said it all started so small. Her grandparents emigrated from northern Mexico to harvest Valley farm fields in the 1940s and struggled with the cycle of crops. Ippolito said her father was a meat cutter who reluctantly purchased a mom-and-pop grocery store at his wife's behest in 1958. The family sold that four years later and purchased a tamale shop in the 700 block of South Seventh Avenue. It now is one of five La Canasta restaurants, run by other members of the sisters' family.

For years, Richard and Carmen Abril and their seven children struggled mightily, using a panel truck to deliver handmade tortillas and burritos to Phoenix businesses. Then Richard Abril died, leaving Carmen with seven children under age 22 to rear. But Carmen Abril, now 68, had a wealth of business acumen, everyone pitched in and good things began to happen.

Ipplito said their number of Phoenix clients continued to grow and the company started making inroads in the Midwest. The owner of a Mexican restaurant chain based in Minneapolis sampled their food and started having it shipped north by airplane, Ippolito said. Then, the Abril family made the winning bid on a tortilla factory that never got off the ground. It was auctioned in the early 1980s.

Ippolito said the Abrils chugged along without even employing a sales manager until 1985. Not that they felt they needed one. "We went to a local retail grocers association meeting in 1985 and there were 100 men and only three other women outside my two sisters, and myself" Ippolito said. "It made me wonder if we were in the right business." They were.

The family got a big shot in the arm when it was able to qualify for a $1.2 million Small Business Administration loan after the enterprise zone designation was made. Land was purchased adjoining the Abrils' existing 125,000-square-foot plant and a 25,000-square-foot manufacturing facility was added. That allowed the sisters to expand their production of flour and corn tortillas dramatically. They also started manufacturing chips and started distributing nationally under the name My Nana's Tortillas.

With the growth came offers to locate with enticing tax benefits from the cities of Tolleson, Glendale and Litchfield Park. But the sisters decided against it, Ippolito said, because of the effect on its workforce. "Sixty percent of our people are within walking or bicycling distance of the factory," Ippolito said. "If we left, who would employ them? We just decided to stay because of them."Now, La Canasta is trying to buy more new equipment and bump up production an additional 50 percent. "Having the president visit certainly isn't going to hurt," Ippolito said, smiling.