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Procesadora Campofresco Inc., the Santa Isabel
fruit cannery that last year had annual sales of $55 million, will
end this year with close to $60 million in sales. Next year, sales
are expected to surpass $100 million.
Campofresco, which ranked this year at No. 114 on the CARIBBEAN
BUSINESS list of the Top 400 locally owned companies, soon will
announce a major expansion, said Julio F. Mendez, founder, president
& CEO of Campofresco. He added that 30% of sales are exports, mostly
pineapple juice, pineapple chunks, and fresh pineapple sold in the
continental U.S., while fruit-based concentrates are also sold in
Central and South America. Campofresco has 250 full-time employees
and a $4 million annual payroll. Its products are under different
brands: Lotus, Caribik Sun, Orangeplus, Treesweet, Caribe,
FrutiNatural, and Sakito.
In 1982, Mendez, who recently had discovered passion fruit and
foresaw its great potential, had juices produced under the Caribik
Sun label at the former Suiza dairy plant. With no money but
enormous energy, enthusiasm, and extraordinary marketing skills, the
Cuba-born Mendez partnered with Austrian engineer August Madlener to
establish the first Campofresco plant in Mayaguez.
Madlener, who is still a partner, provided technical skills and
money and took care of production, while the 22-year-old Mendez put
to work his creative talents by conceiving the juices, marketing
strategies, and charting business growth. The duo made headway and,
in 1985, Venezuelan Carlos Carrillo came on board as a third partner.
In 1991, the processing plant was moved to Santa Isabel. In 1996,
the company bought the Lotus pineapple-processing plant from the
government and V. Suarez & Co. purchased 22.2% of Campofresco.
That same year, Mendez founded Alipak in Bogota, Colombia with
partners Carrillo and Gonzalo Escobar, a Colombia native. Alipak
holds several U.S. and other international beverage-packaging
patents. It manufactures the flexible pouches used by Campofresco
juices. The company outsources its manufacturing production in
Bogota and Cali.
In 2000, Campofresco entered into a 25-year lease with the
government to manage the 1,500-acre pineapple fields in Manati and
an additional 1,000 acres in Barceloneta. This was done through
another company, Agrocampos Inc., which has 250 field workers. “I
always involve myself in all the businesses, but the highly
technical pineapple field production has become very frustrating
because I haven’t been able to give any input,” said Mendez, adding
the pineapple yield hasn’t met his expectations and he only will be
able to export less than half of a $4.5 million bidded contract.
A family affair
In 1984, Mendez married his childhood sweetheart, industrial
engineer Vicky Cerame. Two years later, she quit her well-paid job
at a pharmaceutical plant to become vice president of quality
assurance & regulatory affairs at Campofresco. “In addition to being
a great mother to our three children, Vicky is so hardworking and
brings order and stability to the company, putting in 10 hours daily,
five to six days a week,” said Mendez, adding she is the most loved
of the two by employees.
Mendez attributes part of their business success to the fact that
his job is his hobby. “I can never tell when my work ends and my
hobby begins because I put in 15 hours daily, seven days a week,” he
explained, adding his credo is to mix family, work, hobby, risk, and
reward. “I tell our children that to win one must take risks and
they must learn at an early age how to manage risks.” He says his
children are being raised in a creative work and business
environment, where one of the goals is to create a balance between
risk and reward.
The couple’s oldest children, Julio Victor, age 15 (who attends
boarding school in the U.S.), and Gabriel, age 13, not only have
worked at Campofresco, but also at the other family businesses the
cannery has spawned. Their chores have included picking the prickly
pineapple in the fields in Manati and Barceloneta and serving as
busboys in Margarita’s Mexican Restaurant and Tierra del Fuego, an
Argentinian restaurant whose name Gabriel conceived. Andrea is four
years old and the apple of her father’s eye.
Branching out, pursuing excellence
Mendez applies a saying from John D. Rockefeller to his business
philosophy: a friendship that arises out of a business relationship
is powerful, but the businesses that develop because of friendships
may prove risky. Today, some of his best friends are his business
partners, whose families often meet socially, sometimes aboard his
65-foot yacht, the Lotus.
In 1984, Mendez opened Margarita’s Mexican Restaurant because he
considered it a good business venture, with his father, don Julio,
as general manager. The restaurant is located on F.D. Roosevelt
Avenue in Puerto Nuevo. In 1990, he added Burrito’s, a fast-food
establishment, and in 1996 installed El Castillito for private
parties of up to 200 people.
In 2001, he opened a second Margarita’s on Plaza Las Americas’ third
level, and with it came the creation of Fraterfood Service Inc. In
addition to Mendez, partners include his father and brother Daniel,
Carrillo, Ruben Morales, Guillermo Garcia, and Hugo Gomez. Morales
is vice president of Campofresco and chief operating officer of
Fraterfood, which in 2005 is expected to have $17 million in annual
sales. It has 330 employees and a $3 million annual payroll.
Plans call for the 2005 opening of a combined Margarita’s,
Burrito’s, El Castillito, and servi-car service, as well as a Tierra
del Fuego and its adjoining Fueguito’s and drive-through service in
Caguas. The concept will then be exported abroad, possibly to
Washington D.C. or Buenos Aires, Argentina, and later to other
cities in the U.S., where Mendez wants to concentrate his expansion
efforts for the restaurant business rather than open more
restaurants in Puerto Rico.
With so many successful businesses, close to $100 million in
combined annual sales, and 1,000 employees, does Mendez have the
Midas touch? He explains that the basic fundamentals are to have a
clear vision of what one wants to do, maintain a strict discipline,
and not become distracted by other businesses. During the 1990s, he
established several businesses in Central and South America, which
he later sold to concentrate on his local businesses. Two other
important components of his success are drawing key people into the
group and persevering.
Mendez admits that in today’s highly competitive world, it is more
difficult to start a business from scratch. “Each day, someone is
going to carry out an unrealized idea—and while that means there is
one less idea to develop, it also means the new business will spark
at least 10 new opportunities. So focus on the opportunities and
forget that someone has already established the business you wanted
to open,” said Mendez, who considers his optimism essential to his
success.
P. Campofresco Inc.
Type of business: Fruit products manufacturing
Headquarters: Santa Isabel
President: Julio F. Mendez
Employees: 500
Year founded: 1982
2003 Revenue: $55 million
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