In contrast to these modern freezing operations, and the similar frozen concentrated

orange juice operations, there continues to exist a traditional fruit and vegetable processing

industry. Since these processed products are not very important in the Mexican diet, these firms

are much less important than their traditional counterparts in other parts of the food industry,

or their counterparts in the United States. However, they represent a large number of firms.

Mexico's food processing industry has nearly 28,000 firms (Grupo Financiero Bancommer).

Only 1 percent of these are large and only 1.6 percent are mid-sized. Eleven percent are small

and fully 87 percent are micro-sized.

 Frozen concentrated orange juice is a product of increasing importance to Mexico.

Although originally much of the production was destined for the U.S. market, the domestic

market has been growing. The industry first developed in response to opportunities created by

freezes in Florida. Traditionally, Mexicans have home-squeezed oranges for their juice.

However, acceptance of juice-from-concentrate is growing, albeit slowly.


MEAT PROCESSORS

 The meat processing industry includes a variety of firms. Meat destined for the

traditional part of the market would be cut into carcass halves or quarters and sent to be further

butchered either in the grocery stores or in meat markets. Although the technology for boxed

beef has been around for many years in the United States, it is only now being introduced in

Mexico. Lack of refrigeration and refrigerated transport restricts the switch to boxed beef in

Mexico.

 The Mexican market has a sector that demands very high quality meat products. This

sector includes the upper and upper middle classes, the resort markets like Cancun and