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Cities of Opportunity

Hispanic culture and tastes create hotspots of growth
Cities of Opportunity

Yet North Carolina, like Florida, has Hispanic growth throughout the state. Five years ago, there were 27 cities or towns with a population more than 20 percent Hispanic. Nielsen reported Charlotte as the most rapidly evolving city, besting metro areas across the nation with an impressive 168 percent increase in Hispanic population from 2000 to 2013. The Raleigh area wasn’t far behind with 139 percent growth in the same time period. Census numbers tell the story from the total population angle: Charlotte’s Hispanic population surpassed 13 percent and Raleigh was just over 11 percent.

Jarrod Snider, director of sales for Charlotte-based Richter and Company, Inc. says Richter has been tracking the changes much farther back than 2000. “The consumer demographic has been evolving and changing over the last 50 years,” he points out, considering the population shift as “a major opportunity to grow our business.”

Several of the cities themselves have responded with festivals and associations dedicated to celebrating and promoting Hispanics. The Annual Charlotte Bachata & Salsa Latin Dance Festival celebrated its fourth year in 2015 and the Hola Charlotte Festival is expected to draw as many as 60,000 attendees in October.

This year also marked the Latin American Coalition’s 25th Annual Festival Latinoamericano and the city of Durham continued its yearly Latino Festival in September. Organizations such as El Centro Hispano and Diamante dedicate themselves to promoting and enriching the Hispanic community as well as celebrating its culture and art.

Snider believes more people of Hispanic origin have come to the state for the same reason most people move anywhere—opportunity. “We have a valuable workforce at our farms,” he says, and as a key growing region, the company has both a migrant work force and local residents alike. Simply put, he states, “There’s opportunity here.”

The Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham areas are home to both the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market and the State Farmer’s Market in Raleigh as well as the nearby ports of Wilmington and Morehead City.

Since Hispanic customers tend to purchase more produce than other demographic groups, in both quantity and frequency, Snider says “it gives us an opportunity to utilize different sizing and specifications to meet their demands. At the same time, it helps us to move more product.” Single-serve fruit offerings, both fresh and dried, are also a growth category, which Snider notes is “a major trend here in the Southwest, and on the East Coast.”

Other Cities to Watch: Atlanta, Oklahoma City, Washington DC & More
Several other cities and metropolitan areas are becoming home to the U.S.’s surging Hispanic population. Atlanta experienced a 127 percent growth rate from 2000 to 2013, second only to Charlotte and the area around Raleigh, NC. The city’s overall Hispanic population continues to climb, reaching nearly 6 percent of the metro area’s total population.

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