NEW YORK — Food Bazaar is distributing nutritional pamphlets geared especially to Hispanics. Called “Camino Magico” and provided by the Latino Nutrition Coalition, the brochures include healthy recipes and explain how to read nutrition labels.
The brochures are the latest customer service of Food Bazaar, a chain that touts itself as a “home away from home.”
“We pride ourselves on going to great lengths in order to provide each of the communities that we serve with the flavors that they love and recall from back home,” said Suzanne Kuczun, spokeswoman for Bogopa Service Corp., parent to the 14-unit chain with stores in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Each store has an extensive dairy department, fish market, meat department with full custom meat cutting, a farm stand with varieties of international and local produce, including organic items, as well as a full grocery selection with emphasis on Hispanic and other international products.
“The shelves stacked high remind me of shopping in a Latino market back home,” one customer said in a survey.
Eleven stores operate under the Food Bazaar banner, while an additional three are called Food Dimensions. However, the company is consolidating all units to the Food Bazaar.
Stores are specially stocked so customers can prepare well-known foods from their homeland. There's papa seca (Peruvian potatoes), which Peruvians use to make carapulca (potatoes with pork), and ackees (fruit), which Jamaicans use to make saltfish.
“We understand that ‘home’ is not just a fading memory of a distant land, but something that can be re-created and experienced every night at the family dinner table,” Kuczun said.
