Menudo maker swaps Wilmington for Santa Fe Springs
Juanita’s Foods, maker of the iconic canned menudo and pozole, is moving production from Wilmington to Santa Fe Springs after the city offered a $13.5 million loan and $1.5 million in incentives.
SANTA FE SPRINGS, CA — After 80 years and untold cans of menudo, Juanita’s is headed to Santa Fe Springs.
The maker of the iconic canned menudo and pozole, a long time fixture of supermarket Hispanic foods aisles, has called Wilmington home since its founding in 1946 as a fish-canning company, before branching into production of the Mexican stew in 1950.
The signature menudo began with a family recipe from co-founder Albert Guerrero’s wife. The recipe evolved over the decades as Juanita’s grew and modernized its canning operation.
And grow it did.
When beloved Southern California TV personality Huell Howser toured Juanita’s Wilmington operation in 2006, he watched beef tripe, hominy, and red chile broth make their way down the production line. He also learned just how much tripe the factory handled: 75,000 to 80,000 pounds on a normal day, according to George De La Torre, then-president of Juanita’s Foods.
“That’s a lot of cow stomach,” Howser observed in an episode dedicated to the Mexican American staple that dominates New Years gatherings and Sunday morning taqueria tables alike.
Twenty years later, after an “exhaustive nationwide search,” Juanita’s plans to consolidate production into a 120,000-square-foot facility at 13100 Arctic Circle in SFS.
“Ultimately, the combination of Santa Fe Springs’ business-friendly approach, the right facility and a competitive incentive package made staying in Southern California a no-brainer,” Chief Operating Officer Jody Jordan said in a press release. “It allowed us to remain where Juanita’s was founded while continuing to invest in our people and our future.”
How SFS landed Juanita’s
Juanita’s is the first completed deal for the BIG 4, a partnership formed in October 2025 by Santa Fe Springs, Commerce, Vernon, and the City of Industry. The four cities are working together to attract new businesses and keep existing ones in the region.
Together, the cities have more than 250 million square feet of industrial space, 5,000 businesses, and 200,000 workers. The BIG 4 estimates that their industrial economies produce about $33 billion in economic activity.
Bobadilla said the partnership helped the cities pool their resources, act quickly, and give Juanita’s a path to stay in California.
“This is what becomes possible when cities stop looking at economic development as a competition and start looking at it as a regional opportunity,” Bobadilla said. "By working together, we were able to align resources, move with greater speed, and give Juanita's Foods a clear path to invest and grow here in the region."
City records show that SFS offered Juanita’s a loan of up to $13.5 million and about $1.5 million in direct financial incentives to secure the move.
The incentives, approved by the City Council on September 1, include up to $500,000 in waived permit fees, a $500,000 relocation payment, and another $500,000 for employee training and retention.
The $13.5 million loan, approved August 18, will help pay for the move and new equipment. Juanita’s will make quarterly interest payments and repay the full loan after three and a half years, unless the city approves an extension of up to five years.
The loan’s interest rate is tied to California’s Local Agency Investment Fund rate, which stood at 3.92% for the quarter ending June 30.
According to city records, Juanita’s relocation represents an estimated $60 million to $70 million investment, including the purchase of the Arctic Circle property, new equipment, and improvements to the roughly 122,000-square-foot building. A proposed second phase would add a warehouse of about 50,000 square feet elsewhere in SFS.
The Arctic Circle property has rail access and could be ready for use sooner than competing sites. Its location, about 15 miles from Wilmington, could also make it easier for current employees to stay with the company.
City staff said Juanita’s needed to choose a site quickly, while Kansas and Texas were offering competing incentive packages.
As part of the deal, Juanita’s has also agreed to contribute $1 million to Santa Fe Springs’ Community Benefit Fund over five years.
The move comes less than two years after a major change in Juanita’s ownership.
In April 2025, the Los Angeles Times reported that the family-owned company sold a majority stake to Miami-based private equity firm Apex Capital. The sale price was not disclosed. The De La Torre family, which had owned the business for three generations, kept a minority stake and remained involved in the company.
At the time of the sale, Juanita’s employed 160 people and was seeing double-digit growth, according to Lloyd Greif, whose investment banking firm represented the family. Greif also told the Times that Apex planned to keep manufacturing in California.
The Times reported that Juanita’s held more than 95% of the canned menudo market at the time. Apex is affiliated with Grupo Mariposa, a Guatemalan food and beverage company.
The BIG 4 announcement does not say when production will begin in SFS, how many people Juanita’s currently employs, or whether all Wilmington employees will make the move.
The SELA Sun contacted Juanita’s Foods to ask why it decided to leave Wilmington, when production will begin in SFS, how the move will affect employees, and how much the company is investing in the new facility, but did not receive a response by press time.
