LA PUENTE Calif. — This year marks the 30th anniversary for Cacique Inc., a company which three decades ago made 100 pounds of cheese each day in a tiny facility and is now the nation's largest Hispanic-style dairy products producer.

Celebrating an anniversary is one way companies can gain publicity for themselves, and in some respects Cacique is no different. It, too, is utilizing this milestone to generate consumer awareness. However, Tirso Iglesias III, director of marketing, Cacique, says that the company is not only generating publicity but giving back to its customers.

Cacique, founded by Gilbert and Jennie de Cardenas, has always had a philanthropic bent. This year, though, the company is taking its philanthropy to a new level by committing $3 million in support of diabetes research.

Cacique is partnering with City of Hope National Medical Center, a biomedical research, treatment and educational institution just outside of Los Angeles. The company says that $2 million it has committed will go toward raising awareness of the issues surrounding diabetes via a multimedia campaign. In addition, Cacique will donate $1 million to City of Hope for diabetes research.

Diabetes was chosen as the cause the company is supporting because there is a large percentage of Hispanics who have the disease, says Jim Taylor, director of special projects, Cacique.

"We're doing it as a way of saying thank you," Taylor says.

"Instead of patting ourselves on the back, we're trying to make life better for our consumers," says Mac Moore, CEO, sales and marketing, Cacique.

The majority of Cacique's consumers are Hispanic, though the company has found in recent years that there is more and more interest in ethnic cooking among all cultures.

The company was founded when the de Cardenas family moved to the West Coast and discovered that there were few high-quality, authentic Hispanic dairy products available.

"They decided they could do something better," Moore says, "and soon began making their own cheese."

The couple would start at 2 a.m. to make the cheese; then Gilbert de Cardenas marketed the cheese while Jennie cared for their four children — Ana, Maria, Gilbert Jr. and Tony — all of whom are involved in the business today. Their mission was to make and market the best Hispanic cheese possible.

Today the company operates a 200,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility just outside of Los Angeles. The company's executives decline to say how much cheese they produce annually, but suffice it to say they've come a long way from the handful of cheeses they originally produced. The company's focus is on cheese but it also offers creams, Hispanic-style drinkable yogurt and chorizos, a Mexican-style sausage.

Gilbert de Cardenas, chairman of the board, has always stressed quality — a clear focus and mandate that's been passed down to his children and the rest of the company's employees, who are considered extended family. Moore says the company uses exacting standards for all of its products. The company has a number of awards to show for this focus on quality, including a dozen gold medals at the recently-held Los Angeles County Fair.

Gilbert de Cardenas always believes products and packaging can be improved, which also has resulted in innovation along the way.

"If you compare what was made at the beginning to what's being made now, it's different," says Tirso Iglesias, vice president of sales and national director of direct store delivery (DSD) operations, Cacique, who is one of the company's longtime employees. He joined Cacique in 1975.

"There's better packaging today," he says.

Shelf life is much longer than it used to be, Moore says. The company has worked hard at extending shelf lives from weeks to months and still maintaining the products' flavors, he says.

The company has customers throughout the country and believes that the best way to manage and maintain the quality of its products is by being hands-on. This has resulted in the company operating a network of its own distribution centers around the country.

"We give our products tender loving care," Taylor says.

The company currently operates 12 distribution centers, with a distribution center near Miami that opened earlier this year its most recent addition.

Iglesias says that DSD ensures that the product is well-rotated, properly handled and that there are no out of stocks. This is particularly critical for some of its fresh products like queso fresco and creams.

"Our goal is to provide a second-to-none service. The only way to achieve this is by DSD service," Iglesias says.

Route salesman have hand-held computers to track product in order to provide strong customer service and high quality product, Taylor adds.

DSD also helps the company when it is sampling product, which is an important component of Cacique's overall marketing plan. The company utilizes television, radio and print advertising, and consumer promotions, to reach its target audience.

Cacique provides a specific training regimen for its employees. Dubbed University of Cacique, classroom as well as hands-on training are part of the training protocol for all employees, whether they are based in California, Florida or somewhere in between. The same training for all employees knits the company's staff together, Moore says.

To help create freight efficiencies for its customers, Cacique also plans to open a cheese plant in the Midwest, Moore says, though at this point the company does not want to divulge further details.

The company also continues to tailor its product lines to meet the needs of its customers, be they in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York or Miami.

"The Hispanic community is very diverse," Iglesias III explains, noting that not only are there differences in product preferences among Hispanics from South America versus Mexico versus the Caribbean, there also are differences in preference based on locale in the United States.

For example, the company offers Queso Blanco Fresco, fresh white cheese that's a bit creamy and favored by Hispanics of Caribbean descent, as well as Queso Fresco, which is crumblier and saltier and favored by Mexicans.

The names of the company's cream products also make clear at which consumers products are targeted. The company's Hispanic creams, popular for making entrees, desserts and sauces, are marketed under names such as Crema Mexicana, Crema Centroamericana and Crema Salvadoreña. The products aren't simply the same products with different names. Each product has a distinctive taste developed to taste like the traditional products to which Hispanic immigrants are accustomed.

The company keeps a finger on the pulse of its consumers in a number of ways, utilizing IRI and other data it purchases as well as its own research. This has resulted in the company more heavily marketing in recent years some of the cheeses it has long carried, including Manchego and Cotija.

Cacique's vision for the future is to continue to grow along with its consumers and the communities it serves, Moore says.

"We just want to continue to be experts on Hispanic cheeses," he says.

CMN