How holiday tamale makers are managing inflation
On a Saturday morning two weeks before Christmas, Cheryl Ramirez had already crossed a few items off her holiday list: red and green chiles from her favorite New Mexican farms, lots of lard and corn flour. But she still had some shopping to do, starting at Albertsons.
“One guess what I’m making,” she said with a smile as the checkout clerk rang up 10 pork butts.
Twenty-five years ago, Ramirez started taking holiday tamale orders from her friends and family, who recommended her to their friends and family and neighbors and coworkers until she was basically running a seasonal business out of her home kitchen in Albuquerque’s North Valley.
This year, she’s on track to break her own record and fill at least 250 orders, amounting to about 3,000 tamales. And she’s been keeping an eye out for deals, like 99 cents a pound on pork.
“For close to 100 pounds of meat, some salt and garlic, it was $97,” Ramirez said as she rolled her cart out of the grocery store. “Which is a really great deal.”
For the second year in a row, Ramirez is keeping her tamale prices steady at just $20 a dozen. At her next stop, a restaurant supply warehouse, she explained that’s the case despite major cost increases for her.
“These used to be about $25, and now they’re $60,” she said as she loaded a 25-pound bucket of Morrell brand lard into her cart.
But Ramirez can offset that by shopping for deals on other ingredients. Plus, the holiday cookies she recently added to her menu have a wider profit margin and help offset the rising cost of making tamales. She said keeping her prices low gives her an edge with customers over larger operations that aren’t as nimble.
“Because I’ve noticed a ton of people have had to raise their prices in just the food industry, period,” Ramirez said.
Like La Mexicana restaurant and tortilla company in Albuquerque’s Barelas neighborhood, where holiday orders of traditional treats like tamales, menudo and biscochitos account for 40% of yearly business.
The restaurant was packed during a Wednesday lunch rush, a big improvement over last year, when owner Marco Nuñez was having such a hard time staffing up that he had to close the dining room in December to focus on filling holiday orders.
“That was a huge issue,” Nuñez said. “This year, it seems like people are more wanting to work.”
Last year, holiday order volumes were down in response to price increases to account for inflation. This year, they’re trending back up after Nuñez raised prices on sit-down restaurant meals to help keep the price of a dozen tamales steady at $25.
“I think it’s more people are getting together. You know, they’re more comfortable having the whole family over. We’ve had like a few office parties and stuff, which were nothing last year,” Nuñez said. “The only thing really getting us is the cost of goods.”
In the back of the house at La Mexicana, workers and a stone grinder machine mixed masa for tamales and tortillas.
“This is where it all starts. It starts off as just corn,” Nuñez said, referring to one of the ingredients that’s become more expensive even in the last few weeks.
“It went up 20%. And then all of a sudden, [our supplier] called my mom and said, ‘Your next order is going to be up 35%,’” Nuñez said. “So we’re at 55%, literally in a matter of, like, two months.”
Plus, Nuñez is paying some of his new hires as much as $15 an hour, more than twice his typical starting wage before the pandemic.
“Usually Christmas is where we kind of get extra for the year,” Nuñez said. “We’re just going to be even, which we’re thankful for, but the dynamic has definitely changed.”
Just down the road from La Mexicana at El Mezquite market, Ramirez picked up her last ingredient: corn husks for wrapping the tamales.
“They have the best price and they’re really good husks. They’re for the most part all usable, so I don’t have any waste,” Ramirez said.
When Ramirez was first getting started, her tamale profits went toward Christmas presents for her kids. Now that they’re grown, she treats herself. Last year, she spent the money on a trip to see her favorite NFL team play on Christmas Eve.
“I got stuck in Pittsburgh for a week almost because of the weather, but it was worth it,” she said with a laugh. “And the Steelers did win.”
This year Ramirez expects to bring in a healthy $4,000 profit, which she plans to invest back into her business.
“Because I love this. I love cooking. I love it. I’m gearing towards either a food truck or just an actual location,” she said.
Tamales are Ramirez’s holiday side hustle on top of her day job as a paralegal. But at this time next year, she might be running her own restaurant.
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