Mexico and the World
Vol. 4, No 3 (Summer 1999)
http://www.profmex.org/mexicoandtheworld/volume4/3summer99/grupo_maseca.html

Barrera of Grupo Maseca Wins
PROFMEX Prize for Contribution to Global Policy

At PROFMEX's April 1999 Conference on "Shared Visions: New Ideas for Mexican Development", over 600 scholars and policymakers from around the world met to discuss the importance of implementing radical change in the nutritional priorities of the nation. The significance of this issue was addressed  by both Governor Fox  of the State of Guanajuato and Professor James Wilkie. Together, they jointly awarded PROFMEX's Prize for Contribution to Global Policy  to Roberto González Barrera.

Below: Roberto González Barrera, chairman of Grupo Maseca, speaks on
nutritional enrichment of produced food.

González, chairman of Grupo Maseca (Gruma), Mexico's largest producer of tortillas, received the honor in recognition of his vital contribution toward Mexico's two Green Revolutions, each "revolution" having both an agricultural component and a food production component. The first of these was the result of Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug's role in initiating the First Green Revolution in Agriculture in the 1940s, through such innovations as a technique for speeding up the movement of disease immunity between strains of crops, development of cereals that could be grown in many climates, and the perfection of dwarf spring wheat. Concomitantly, González launched the First Green Revolution in Nutritious Staple Food Production by developing corn flour and packaged tortillas with added vitamins and minerals for manufacture by Maseca, which was founded in 1949. "In addition to improving the nutritional value of the company's products," Wilkie pointed out, "González also switched from using wood as an energy source to gas and electricity, developed the means to reduce by almost fifty percent the amount of energy and water needed for production, and managed to minimize corn waste."

It also ended the need, if not the custom, of women spending up to four hours a day grinding and preparing corn, a method which compromises the taste and edibility of the corn after two days. The result was an enriched, hygienically produced tortilla with a longer shelf life for Mexico's popular sector, for whom the tortilla was, and still is, a main item of consumption. Having since expanded its consumer base to Central and South America as well as to the USA and Europe, Maseca under the leadership of González Barrera has laid the foundation for the Second Green Revolution in Food Processing.

The current focus is upon improved protein in newly engineered seeds and consequently in the corn flour. By adding vital protein elements to Mexico's "staff of life" it is hoped that for many workers in Mexico who cannot afford a balanced diet, the fortified and enriched corn flour will continue to contribute to proper physical development and health maintenance of children and adults alike.

Not all such attempts to improve the nutritional value of popular consumables in Mexico have succeeded as well as Maseca's have. Relating an interesting anecdote at the awards ceremony, Fox, who was president of Coca-Cola in Mexico from 1975 to 1979, recounted how he tried at that time to market a nutritionally enriched soft drink - only to see it fail on the market.