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Tasting Profits With a Latin Flavor; 'Dulce de Leche' Joins the M&M Family as Hispanic Favorites Go Mainstream

By Sabrina Jones
Washington Post Staff Writer
07/15/2001
The Washington Post

M&M's have officially gone Latino. And that's fine, because so many other products have too.

This week, Mars Inc., the nation's third-largest confectioner, announced its plans to tempt Hispanic snackers with a new flavor for its popular M&M's candies. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the flavor, which will be rolled out in heavily Hispanic markets at the end of this month, is one that has already caught on big time around the country: the seductively sweet caramel known as dulce de leche, star of Latin American desserts.

Dulce de leche, which means "sweet of milk" and is pronounced DOOL-say duh LAY-chay, is one of the latest Latin imports to be absorbed into "mainstream" American culture, said Scott Hudler, brand communications manager of the privately held McLean-based company. "Everything that's Latin is hot right now, both in the Latin American community and the mainstream," Hudler said. "We really wanted to develop something that would strengthen our relationship with the Hispanic community."

The sweet concoction, defined as caramelized milk, first made its way into mainstream grocers' freezers in 1998 in the form of Haagen-Dazs dulce de leche super-premium ice cream. Then the flavor invaded Haagen-Dazs yogurt, desserts at the popular Cheesecake Factory restaurants and even, in some markets, McDonald's McFlurry desserts.

"Dulce de leche was the most popular candy that I grew up with," said George L. San Jose, a Chicago marketing and advertising specialist. "It was the only candy -- it was that or rock sugar."

As a boy in Havana, San Jose rushed over daily after school to the candy store to buy the little square chewy candies that were about an inch thick and cost about a penny for two pieces. Now he's president of the San Jose Group in Chicago and treasurer of the McLean-based Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies. "You could get a real sugar high from this candy."

A sweet phenomenon indeed. There are plenty of incentives for industries to focus their marketing efforts on Latino consumers. According to the latest census, Hispanics now make up 12.5 percent of the nation's population. And that quick-growing ethnic group now numbers at least 35 million people -- more than Canada's population -- and has a purchasing power estimated to reach more than $500 billion a year. Pop stars Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera and, of course, the omnipresent Jennifer Lopez are high on the music charts; salsa dance lessons are hot; and TV and radio stations have specifically designed programs for Hispanic audiences.

"Being Hispanic, or Latino, as we call them, has become a cool thing, an 'in' thing," said Felipe Korzenny, principal and co-founder of Cheskin, a Redwood Shores, Calif.-based research and consulting firm that specializes in multicultural marketing. "It clearly has to do with the growth of the market. Now almost every American has a friend who's from Latin America. The market has grown so much that marketers find it desirable to target these groups."

Korzenny, who is Mexican American, said dulce de leche joins a lengthening list of flavors replicated from other countries, from Mexico to Argentina. There's the ubiquitous salsa, of course, in its many variations. And Corona beer, once a small brand in Mexico, now sells around the world. And other foods with a Latin flavor, such as pork rinds, jalapeno peppers and cinnamon, have permeated across-the-board American taste buds.

And now dulce de leche.

During the dinner rush at Cafe Atlantico, the upscale Latin American restaurant in downtown Washington, executive chef Christy Velie said, she and her co-workers already snack on dulce de leche ice cream, though the restaurant does not serve a dessert with that flavor. In recent years, she has seen the mystery disappear from other popular Hispanic foods, such as plantains and chili peppers, which she easily finds at her local Giant supermarket.

"You know, in America, we're a bunch of people who want to make money, so we're going to cater to who the market is," Velie said. "There will be no mystery behind Latin American food 10 years from now. People start to pay attention to detail and expect people who cook Latin American food to be more authentic."

To be authentic, and to get the flavor right, Mars spent two years developing and testing the dulce de leche M&Ms in markets around the nation, Hudler said. The rollout marks the first time the company has developed a product for a specific ethnic group.

And Mars is one of a small number of businesses that have taken that route, going beyond simply translating advertisements into Spanish, said Andrew Lazar, who follows Hershey Foods Corp. as an analyst of packaged-foods companies for Lehman Brothers in New York.

"This is a new product for a specific segment, rather than unique advertising on an existing product," Lazar said. "It seems like a more concerted effort."

Three years ago, when Haagen-Dazs, the leader in ice cream sales, introduced its dulce de leche ice cream -- also specifically for the Hispanic market -- it watched as the flavor became the Minneapolis-based company's second-fastest seller, after vanilla, wherever it was stocked. The flavor is now also sold as an ice cream bar, said Ellen Snook, a company spokeswoman.

Dulce de leche has since been picked up by other ice cream companies, including Edy's, which manufactures Edy's Dreamery and Starbucks super-premium ice creams. Dreamery called its version creme caramel when it introduced the flavor in September 1999; it renamed it dulce de leche this past April. Even Safeway supermarkets have their own Lucerne house brand of dulce de leche ice cream.

At the Calabasas Hills, Calif.-based Cheesecake Factory Inc., Howard Gordon, senior vice president of business development and marketing, said the restaurant chain started serving a dulce de leche caramel cheesecake two years ago, an addition to its menu of more than 40 cheesecakes. The Cheesecake Factory, he said, was aware of the Haagen-Dazs flavor. "A lot of people are doing that same flavor," he said. "It's a great flavor."

The chocolate-and-caramel-swirl dulce de leche M&M's, the seventh flavor of the candy that launched in 1941 in milk chocolate, will premiere in five markets with large Latino populations -- Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, and the Texas cities of San Antonio and McAllen-Brownsville. If they find a broader audience, there may be national distribution.

Carlos Santiago, a partner and co-founder of Santiago & Valdes Solutions Inc., a multicultural marketing firm in the San Francisco Bay area, said companies, particularly those in the food industry, are discovering the power of Latino-oriented products. While the result may not hold up to the culinary talents of consumers' mothers and grandmothers, the nostalgic effect of dulce de leche and other flavors will encourage people to buy -- and not only Hispanics, Santiago said.

"People love anything that sounds Spanish, and they will give it a try, absolutely," Santiago said. "It's the new America, and we all want to be part of it."

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