By Claudia Flores
Editor’s note: Quotes have been translated from Spanish to English
La Primera Tortilla Factory is a local tortilleria founded in 1984 in Sunland Park, New Mexico. What started as a dream by Jose and Aurora Favela, today La Primera has become one of the primary tortilla distributors in town.
Their story starts back when the Favelas lived in Juárez, Mexico. The everyday routine of Jose Favela, walking by a tortilleria, inspired him to build his own business. With the help of his sons, that would turn into a dream come true.
“Every day he would pass by a tortilleria on his way to work. He would always stare at it and think about how a tortilleria could be a good business venture,” said Sergio Favela, co-owner of La Primera. “Now that time has passed and my parents are older, I’m happy to see he got to see his business grow. His hunch was right.”
According to Favela, La Primera was named after “First Street,” the street where his father had bought a small piece of land in Sunland Park to start the tortilleria.
The business started as a small grocery store and grew, but after Jose Favela got sick, he turned the business over to his sons in an attempt to avoid closing the shop he worked so hard to build.
“He called me while I was living somewhere else, and asked me if I wanted to take over,” Favela said. “Once I got into the business, I continued with the grocery store. One day I made 30 packs of tortillas and sold only five, so I put the rest in a box and distributed them among the local stores.
“The next day, some of those stores sold out the tortillas. This gave me hope, and I continued to distribute in more stores throughout Doniphan Street in El Paso. That’s how it all started.”
After seven months of taking over La Primera, Favela talked to his brothers about joining the business. They decided to leave their jobs to dedicate themselves to their father’s dream of a successful business.
In 1998, La Primera had the opportunity to distribute its product in a larger capacity. Big 8 Food Stores gave the local tortilla factory the opportunity to sell their product in their stores.
“At this point the business grew a lot and we didn’t have credit or enough money to keep up with demand. It was forcing us to sacrifice a lot of our time and energy,” said Favela.
With the business growing at a very fast pace and not having the resources to hire employees or buy new equipment, Favela and his brothers were forced to wake up at midnight to start production, package, deliver the tortillas, and finish their shift at 4 p.m.; thus ending a 16-hour work day.
From problems ranging from financial to family relationships, the Favelas faced a difficult time finding a way to maintain the business. Finally, in 2014 they received the help they needed when they received a loan from First Light Federal Credit Union where they were able to build a new location to continue with the business their father started back in 1984.
“Those were hard times. There were points where we just wanted to give up and close the business because we were not making that much money,” said Favela. “But now that I see where we ended up, it was completely worth it. We are so proud we succeeded as a family business.”
In 2016, La Primera took a big step by starting distribution of its products in stores like Walmart and Albertsons. This would give them the opportunity to become the leading provider of tortillas in El Paso and the surrounding areas.
For La Primera, greatly expanding the distribution of tortillas and tostadas (regular and chile) is a goal the owners hope to accomplish in a couple of years.
“Lowes Market grocery chain is all over Texas and we are already planning on how to get our products to their other stores throughout the state. We believe that goal is not too far to achieve,” said Favela.
Favela said this business has given him and his siblings life lessons to value their family and journey throughout this experience, especially as family of immigrants coming into the U.S.
“This is a business built with love. I would have never imagined seeing the outcome of my father’s dream,” said Favela. My parents risked everything they had for this. We are a family of Mexican immigrants who came to succeed, and we succeeded as a family.”
