Ethnic Flavors: Latino Market and Global Market

Magnolia Salem is Columbian, and she wanted Columbian bread and red beans. Mahmoud Salem is Egyptian, and he wanted Arabic cheese and tea.

In order to buy those items, the couple had to drive to Kansas City or even Chicago.

The Salems figured they weren’t the only people in Springfield who were having trouble finding products from their home countries.

“We thought, ‘Why not open our own store here?’” Mahmoud Salem recalls.

They did – even though they’d just moved to Springfield and even though they had no experience in grocery stores. They both worked as medical technicians in New York City.

They named their store Latino Market and made its mission to specialize in hard-to-find, ethnic foods ordered straight from the country of origin.

“We carry things other stores don’t carry,” Mahmoud Salem says. “I have coffee from Peru. I have coffee from Columbia. I have Bulgarian cheese straight from Europe.”

The business model worked.

They started with a focus on South American and Middle Eastern foods, but within six months of opening, the Salems started expanding their product line.

“Some people came in and said, ‘I’m from Romania. Why don’t you have Romanian food?’” Mahmoud Salem remembers. “Or ‘I’m from India. Why don’t you have Indian food?’ I enjoy this business really because this is why we started, and that’s how I feel about the customers. They need to have these things here.”

In 2002, the Salems increased the store’s floor space from 1,200 square feet to 2,700 square feet. And in September, they added a second store on South Grant Avenue.

They named this one Global Market to reflect the fact that the store’s shelves don’t only display Brazilian soda and Salvadorean sour cream. They also hold Hungarian cheese, Saudi Arabian dates and frozen goat meat, which connects with people from many African nations. As the new store becomes more established, the Salems want to add more European, Indian and Asian products to its shelves.

Even the items you might find in a typical grocery store aren’t typical.

The Nescafé? It’s not American Nescafé. This Nescafé comes straight from Mexico, and that makes a difference.

“It goes back to that old saying: ‘Think global, act local,’” says Jim Murrow, a marketing professor at Drury University’s Breech School of Business Administration.

For decades, multinational companies have been honing their products to appeal to taste buds across the world, Murrow says, and since those taste buds don’t always agree, the flavors often end up different.

“Pizza in Japan, for example, is not like what we think of here. It has corn on it and seaweed and octopus,” Murrow says.

And, adds Murrow, as Springfield’s population grows increasingly diverse and as Americans are exposed to more and more international foods through travel, the Salems seem to have hit on a great idea.

So how do the Salems manage to order their products directly from the country of origin?

“That’s my little secret,” Mahmoud Salem says, with a smile. “I ask my customers what they don’t find other places, and then I will try my best to find it. But not every product outside the United States can we bring here.”

The Salems are already an international couple, but their shops have made them even more culturally diverse.

As customers ask them to order specific products, the Salems have been sampling them.

“So far, we try almost everything,” Magnolia Salem says. “We always tell the customers, ‘I know it’s good because I tried it.’ Anytime something new comes in, the first thing we do is open it and taste.”

Mahmoud Salem has even been expanding his international vocabulary. He already speaks English, Spanish and Arabic, but he’s been adding key phrases in other languages as well.

“It helps,” he said. “When I tell an African customer, ‘Thank you,’ in Swahili, it makes them very happy. It makes a difference.”

Latino Market

Founded: April 1997

Address: 1661 St. Louis St., Springfield, MO 65802

Phone: (417) 831-4227

Fax: (417) 831-4868

Global Market

Founded: September 2006

Address: 1773 S. Grant Avenue, Springfield MO 65807

Phone: (417) 862-5355

Fax: (417) 862-5229

Owners: Mahmoud and Magnolia Salem

Web site: www.myplanetfood.com

Services: Both stores sell food from Central and South America, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. They also sell phone cards and offer money transfer services.

Employees: 4