In 1990, the Tortilla Industry Association (TIA) was created to serve the emerging tortilla industry. Today, that industry is the fastest growing segment of the baking industry. Earlier this month, TIA held its annual conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV.
Looking to do its part to help shrink the ever growing waistlines of many Hispanics (and Latin food lovers), many booths at the convention showed off companies’ new line of whole grain, high-fiber, low-carb, and even gluten-free tortillas. These new products, companies say, is in response to the many Hispanics sharing that they are becoming more concerned with their health in terms of what they eat.
Eric Sanchez, a sales manager with Reiser, an equipment maker that provides the machine that cut mounds of dough that can be flattened into tortillas, told the <em>The Las Vegas Review-Journal<em>, “Hispanic people are getting bigger and bigger and we need to change. The second generation of immigrants are changing their eating habits.”
