NOGALES, SONORA — How many store checks — plus a border crossing — can you fit in about an hour?
John Pandol, director of special projects for Delano, CA-based Pandol Bros. (and THE professional store checker) and I found out.
After grabbing a coffee on the Arizona side of the border, we crossed over and visited four stores just a short drive into Nogales Sonora.
Our first stop was Soriana, which had one of the larger produce departments, but showed an explanation to something I had seen on TikTok recently.
I’ve wondered why retailers in the U.S. that cater to consumers of Mexican descent often have so many red delicious apples. Is it purely a cost thing?
And then I saw a TikTok from apple grower Kaitlyn Thornton about why red delicious in the U.S. is often…not delicious. She explained the apples used to have yellow stripes, and when they bred them to be more red, the yellow was gone, and so was the flavor.
Turns out, Mexican-grown red delicious apples still have the yellow stripes! Perhaps they are actually still delicious?
Soriana also had Tajin-branded dried chiles, something I also haven’t seen in the U.S. Tajin is more of an emerging brand, though I will say I’ve seen it expand quite a bit, most recently into mango-flavored fruit bars in the freezer case.
