A Whole Foods Market regional produce coordinator prefers Colorado's Pueblo chiles over New Mexico's Hatch chiles, so he's stocking stores throughout the Rocky Mountain region with the Colorado-grown version, according to a report in the Denver Post.
"The Pueblo chile has been overlooked," said Steve Lunzer, regional produce coordinator at Whole Foods Market, who last week announced the store is dropping the Hatch brand in favor of Pueblo chiles. "Hatch is all over the place, It's such a commodity," Lunzer said.
Whole Foods plans to put 125,000 pounds of Pueblo chiles throughout the Rocky Mountain region, including Colorado, Kansas, Idaho and Utah.
Chris Markuson, director of economic development for Pueblo County in Colorado, predicts a healthy economic benefit from the new strategy.
"We're estimating the annual increased economic impact (of the Pueblo green chile market) will be $1.1 million in 2015, and that growth rate will increase by 9.4 percent every year," he said.
