You are Mariana Velasco-Quiñónez, 49, CEO of Conservas Tlalpan, a fourth-generation Mexican consumer-foods group based in Toluca. €312M revenue, 1,140 employees, 18 SKUs across canned salsas, dressings, and ready-meals. The 2024–2027 strategic plan committed €58M to the legacy core. Then a single SKU went sideways — in the right direction.
The situation
The 2024 plan was sober: protect the salsa core (84% of revenue), modernise three plants, push the canned-meals line through grocery channels in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Capex committed: €58M over three years. Capacity built, brand campaign launched in March. The plan is now 18 months in. The core is performing roughly as planned. Slightly under, in fact.
Eight months ago, a junior product manager in the Mole & Salsas team — Ximena Casillas-Rentería — quietly relaunched an old discontinued SKU, Salsa Tatemada Tlalpan, as a small-batch artisanal line for a single Mexico City retail chain. The product was a side project; she had €180k of margin-recycle budget and a six-week test window. The product hit Q1 2026 sell-through at 4.1× the planned volume. Q2: 5.8×. Q3 forecast: 8.2×. The retail chain wants exclusivity for the rest of the year. Three other chains have asked. Two Mexican-food restaurant groups in Texas have flown to Toluca to negotiate.