Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Catalina Garcia Garcia. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Catalina, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard
Have the opportunity to control the whole process gives us a big differentiator. We can proudly tell our community there is not wrong choice between: shredded beef, roasted pork, buffalo chicken, vegan (chick peas) and mozzarella cheese.
Catalina, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Maxi Artisanal Empanadas is a family business inspired by our Colombian roots. My husband and his family started working on this recipe in Connecticut eight years ago with an ambitious goal to create the best corn empanadas and shareable plates. After many attempts, feedback from friends, changes to process and understanding how the products are perceived by people from different cultures, we can proudly say that we bring a business model that will succeed in the Tampa Bay market. Our empanadas are gluten free, 100% corn and we have five different fillings: shredded beef, roasted pork, buffalo chicken, vegan and mozzarella cheese.
We are complementing our menu with high quality street tacos and parmesan rosemary fries.
Our main focus at this moment is to encourage folks to try a product that is not common in this area. They are many types on hand held food that is compare to empanadas but each country has their own kind of empanadas with different ingredients.
Even within Colombian style empanadas, Maxi is unique, we have complete control of the process by creating our crispy gluten free dough from scratch and everything that goes in it. Another differentiator for Maxi are the fillings that we use, not just the traditional but a variety that people from different cultures can appreciate.
I love social media, as a journalist I know how important this is to our business and how it makes a good impact, I really enjoy my roll in the company, creating campaigns to increase our followers on Instagram and get more attention for new customers.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
We know is so hard to start a new account on this days, Meta changes the algorithm all the time and is difficult to get a good engagement with our followers but is not impossible. Maxi has the most important thing: a high quality product. That being said our main focus is to create a “character” (the empanada), to get closer to the audience and generate more empathy.
Be constant, show your process, let people know what is your next event, your new products, how to find you, link your web page, share your goals and make a lot of reels, Instagram appreciate it more tan pictures.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
Creating processes require a lot of trial and error. We spent eight years perfecting the recipe. We make everything from scratch as you know, writing and taking notes is fundamental. The quantities, the temperature, the times are crucial to create the best empanada in Tampa Bay.
Once you bite you won’t stop.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://maxiempanadas.square.site/
- Instagram: @MaxiEmpanadas
- Facebook: Maxi Artisanal Empanadas