FRUITLAND, Idaho — You have more than likely seen these tortillas in your area grocery store, but did you know they were Made in Idaho?
Rodriguez Bakery in Fruitland is making tortillas so tasty, they're wrapping up the competition.
"A small company that got started by my Grandfather back in 1955 down in Eagle Pass, Texas. He moved it up here, came out to Wilder, started doing...if anyone's familiar with Rodriguez Bakery, he started doing deliveries home to home with the Mexican pastries. Conchas, empanadas, lucanados," said Rodriguez bakery Director of Operations Jarad LaMarsh.
And when it came time to retire, Francisco Rodriguez made sure to keep it in the family.
"My parents ended up buying it from them sometime in the mid-'90s, they started doing wholesale sales of all the packaged breads. Same Mexican pastries that Francisco had started with," said LaMarsh.
After years of breads and pastries, they decided to change things up in 2008.
"And then one day, we had someone come up to us and ask hey do you guys make tortillas? And we said no, we never have but we'll give it a shot," said LaMarsh.
That's when the tortilla experiment became a tortilla empire, with sales in local markets going through the roof.
"And from there, we had a connection with Walmart and WinCos from having our Mexican breads in there, and they allowed us to come and do some trial test runs and once they saw the numbers of the product going out the door, they said hey we really like it. Bring in more," said LaMarsh.
Rodriguez Bakery was once headquartered across the border in Nyssa, but the need to produce thousands of tortillas a day meant moving to a bigger facility in Fruitland, a move everyone was happy about.
"Idaho is a very welcoming state for new and growing businesses, our employees like working over here, we like what we can do for our employees over here, it just really makes things a lot easier," said LaMarsh.
The tortillas now make up about 90 to 95 percent of the company's total sales. In addition to finding their products in several grocery stores in Idaho, you can find their tortillas in the following restaurants:
- Madre Boutique Taqueria
- The Funky Taco
- Caffeina Roasting Company
- A Care
- Crave Kitchen and Bar
- Grit 2C
- Jolt & Juice Coffee
- Boon Farm to Fork Food Truck
- Just Quesadillas Food Truck
For more information on the family business, click here.
