Over the past few decades, regional Mexican cuisine has cemented itself as an integral part of the American culinary landscape. Mexican home cooks, chefs and restaurateurs have introduced traditional dishes and ingredients across the United States, from street carts and mom-and-pop shops to Michelin-starred restaurants. However, this culinary revolution has not always translated to the supermarket shelves, where Tex-Mex bright-yellow hard taco shells and sugary salsas still dominate. But Somos co-founder and CEO Miguel Leal is looking to change all of that.
Born and raised in Mexico, Leal is motivated to introduce the best of Mexican cuisine to grocery stores nationwide with the help of his two co-founders, Rodrigo Zuloaga and Kind founder Daniel Lubetzky.
“Our mission is to share the best of Mexico with the world. In the last 10 years, Mexican food has become so much more authentic, delicious and even healthier, but we didn’t see that change coming to the shelf,” Leal said. “It was still canned beans and fluorescent yellow taco shells, and we felt that food didn’t represent us.”
Somos, which means “we are” in Spanish, aims to offer everything needed for a healthy, authentic Mexican dinner at home: fire-roasted salsas, herbaceous brown rice, hearty black beans, earthy corn tortilla chips and a selection of plant-based dishes, like smoky chipotle mushrooms or cauliflower tinga.
“All of our products are plant-based with high-quality nutrition while still being delicious and convenient,” Leal said. “With these elements, consumers can put together flavorful tacos, burritos, bowls or a quick, healthy, snack at a moment’s notice.”
Somos brings big flavor to their products through traditional ingredients and cooking techniques. To make their tortilla chips, Somos nixtamalizes their corn by soaking it in an alkaline solution, a millennia-old cooking method dating back to the Aztec empire. This process lends their chips their unique earthy, umami flavor and numerous nutritional benefits.
For Leal, fresh peppers from San Miguel, Mexico are another crucial ingredient: “San Miguel sits in the heart of the mountains and is an incredibly fertile region for growing peppers, tomatoes and tomatillos. It’s almost like the Napa Valley of peppers and the farm where we harvest our peppers is literally next door to the processing plant.”
Once harvested, Somos roasts their peppers using a traditional technique called tatemado, slowly charring them over fire to concentrate their flavor and improve their texture. Paired with Somos’ corn chips, the salsa balances sweetness, smokiness, umami and acidity for a unique eating experience.
Because their products rely on quality Mexican produce, Somos always prioritizes working with Mexican farmers and communities. A high percentage of supplier dollars go back to Mexican farmers, producers and chefs, like the 3rd generation family-owned pepper farm in San Miguel de Allende. Somos also worked with a design firm in Monterrey, Mexico to create their hand-drawn packaging in the colorful style of artesanías, a type of Mexican folk art. Their packaging is almost too pretty to throw away — it belongs in an art gallery just as much as a pantry!
Leal emphasized the importance of nutrition in Mexican food and how it impacted their decision to be entirely non-GMO, gluten-free and plant-based.
“If you came over to my parents’ house for lunch, it would mostly be vegetables with very light proteins and a lot of grains,” he said.
Indeed, before the period of Spanish colonization, Mexican cuisine had been primarily plant-based for thousands of years, relying primarily on maize and vegetables.
“A lot of times, Mexican food is perceived as greasy, cheesy and having a lot of empty calories,” Leal said. “But there are a ton of recipes that are based just on plants and grains, and we thought the idea of plant-based Mexican food would shock people in a great way and start walking consumers down our journey.”
In order to best represent Mexico in a rapidly evolving culinary world, Somos looks to bring a new definition of authenticity to their food, and help bridge cultural gaps in the process.
“Our guiding principle is that we just want to make our moms proud,” Leal said. “We want to take people on a culinary journey and bring the best of Mexico in everything we do.”