Mexican corn chips made in Vars
A local corn chips company, Mexican Corn Products, located in the Vars industrial park, is gaining popularity and expanding into bigger and bigger markets.
When Gabriella Godinez-Laverty first moved to Canada in 2001, she never expected to be in charge of a corn chips company. A graduate in dentistry from the University of Guadalajara in Mexico, she married a Canadian Army officer and moved here. Unable to work in the dentistry field, she threw herself into a short entrepreneurial course and later founded Mexican Corn products in 2004, bringing in her father, Jose Godinez Del Toro and brother, Jose Godinez Luna, from Mexico, to help with the company.
The company started by making soft tortillas but soon realized that it was not the best route to take and opted for the production of corn chips instead. The company’s brand of corn chips started out with three flavors: original, jalapeno and chipotle, all of which are sold at Farm Boy stores in the region since 2006. With the ever growing popularity of the brand, a new facility was opened in 2009, allowing the company to create and sell its chips under their own label, Los Cantores, as well as Farm Boy’s.
With the added Blue Corn, Lime, Cinnamon and Ancient Grains, Mexican Corn
Products now offers seven different chip flavors which are sold in Farm Boy stores, Independent Grocers, as well as other medium sized retailers around Toronto, Ottawa and Quebec. Furthermore, the company started exporting its products to the United States within the last year, supplying Market Fresh stores (over 70 locations) since 2015.
“We hope to be able to sell our products in Whole Food stores across the U.S. and Canada very soon and are looking at reaching all the way to Europe within the next few years,” stated Godinez-Laverty.
The company started by making soft tortillas but soon realized that it was not the best route to take and opted for the production of corn chips instead