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Type of business:
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Retailer of Gourmet New Mexican Food Products, many of which are manufactured and distributed by The Truck Farm, including gourmet chile condiments, meal mixes and their signature products: Besito Caliente and Cherry A'More.
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Cleda and Jim Hawman began The Truck Farm in 1996 with a small farm West of Las Cruces, in the fertile Mesilla Valley of Southern New Mexico, a little ways down the Rio Grande from the famous Hatch Chile fields. Jim Hawman experimented with numerous specialty crops, finally settling on berries. This provided a highly valued product and distinguished the farm from others in the area. The development of the farm and specialized farming techniques resulted in success, which led to the obvious next step, the purchase of a local fruit and gift shop in 1998. Sales of fruit-based products, including pies, cobblers, jams and jellies, along with the fresh fruit continued to increase.
In May of 1999, The Truck Farm acquired Tia Rita Products, a line of chile-based, easily prepared dishes and other gourmet spices and flavorings. In October of 1999, The Truck Farm purchased the Desert Farms line of fine chile-based jellies, honey, marmalades and condiments. This brought the company to near-realization of the long-term goal of becoming a full-service specialty food supplier. During the early growing season of 2000, a surplus of blackberries led to the development of a gourmet blackberry sauce, which eventually became known as Besito Caliente, now the company's most successful product. The huge success of the variety of products led to the next step for The Truck Farm in late 2002. The entire business was consolidated into a custom-designed production facility with adjacent retail store to showcase the various products. The increase in efficiency and production capacity arrived just in time to allow the timely fulfillment of the year's busy holiday season orders.
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