Greetings from the heartland…

It’s been quite a year for us here at Yoli. If you are new to Yoli, welcome! For those that have been with us since 2017, thank you for all your support.

As many of you know, we are small business located in the heart of Kansas City with our retail in the historic Westside neighborhood known for its rich immigrant community. At Yoli, we are always hungry for more Mexican food like the one I grew up with in Sonora, Mexico. Modern technology has brought many valuable contributions to our food systems, but often it has skipped steps or added things to products that by the time you get it in your hands it has lost its identity. Take the humble corn tortilla, it is labor intensive when done the traditional way by sourcing high quality corn, nixtamalizing and then grinding into masa to make tortillas. There so many variables where it can go wrong and as producers every step must be carefully monitored. The result beautiful, soft, and earthy tasting tortillas. In the meantime, most corn tortillas found in non-refrigerated section are filled with preservatives and when you open the package you can’t identify the scent as corn. Nutrition is also gone as to shorten the production, corn kernels are rapidly steamed, corn oils removed for other purposes and all you are left is with a flavorless tortilla.

For many years, I found myself simply not eating Mexican food as nothing I had around me was like the tortillas I grew up with. One year, after a trip to visit my family in Ciudad Obregon, we decided to give it a try and do our own tortillas. Seven years into this business and nothing could have prepared us for so many ups and downs. Certainly, winning the first James Beard Award for Outstanding Bakery in 2023 was not in our wildest dreams. Yet, here we are now, we find ourselves in what is next and the pursuit of excellence in Mexican cuisine.

What is next?

For our friends across the nation, we plan to make more of the Yoli products available in Kansas City at our online shop. Starting by introducing our flour bundles with larger sizes: quesi (short for quesadilla size 8”) and burro (make your big burritos 10”) in both pork fat and avocado oil.