BUYING POWER; MORE VALLEY COMPANIES CATERING TO LATINO CONSUMERS.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

For Linda Delaney, a trip to Spector's Super Mercado Latino in Burbank is like taking a trip to another country.

One day recently, Delaney - an interior decorator and clothing designer who moved back to Burbank after several years out of state - stopped by the store on the corner of Victory Boulevard and Buena Vista Street to find a roll of the brightly colored toilet paper she's seen only in Mexico.

She didn't find it, but Delaney - just about the only non-Latino shopper among the customers that day - stuck around to purchase ground coffee and a few other products she could easily have found at the big supermarket across the street.

And she lingered to enjoy the atmosphere created by the exotic-looking labels. She found unfamiliar foods like Colombian arequipes (a bread spread made of rice, corn and other ingredients) and items from Peru, Mexico and other Latin American countries lining the shelves and stacked in the produce bins - the kinds of things she would never find in the big chain supermarket on the opposite corner.

``I also like to look at the language. It just sort of transports me,'' said Delaney, glancing around at the signs and labels. ``It makes me feel as if I'm in Mexico or another country.''

That suits store co-owner Gaspar de la Cruz just fine - not just that the store could be in Mexico, but in any Latin American country.

``It's like you're in a foreign country; it's not like you're in Burbank,'' said de la Cruz, who came from Cuba in 1968 at age 11. ``It just gives you a happy Hispanic atmosphere.''

The Super Mercado Latino is one of the growing number of businesses in the Valley catering to the Latino consumer. And because Latinos spend more money per capita in grocery stores than any other ethnic group, mercados like de la Cruz's are growing in number and popularity.

Of the estimated 210,000 Latino-owned businesses in Los Angeles County, about 45 percent are in retail, said David Hayes-Bautista, professor of medicine at UCLA's School of Medicine and director of the school's Center for the Study of Latino Health.

``We could imagine that grocery is going to be a big piece'' of those 94,500 retail stores, he said.

In fact, indications are that the number of markets, including Latino-owned ones, catering to the Latino population has grown significantly in recent years. For example, membership in the Los Angeles-based Mexican American Grocers Association has grown from 200 members to 6,500 members, according to Steven A. Soto, president and chief executive officer of the association.

To qualify for membership in the association, at least 30 percent of a grocer's customer base must be Latino, he said.

Why the dramatic increase in stores catering to Latinos? Beyond the obvious reason of feeding an increasing Latino population, the number of mercados are growing because Latinos outspend other ethnic groups in food purchases, Hayes-Bautista said. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics's Consumer Expenditure Survey, in 1995 Latino households on average spent $3,370 for food, compared with $2,803 for whites and $2,367 for African-Americans, Hayes-Bautista said.

``Even though Latino households have lower incomes than white or black households, they spend more on food,'' he said. ``In fact, they spend more on fresh food; what they spend less on is processed food items.''

Latino mothers tend to be hyper-conscious of their family's meals, which may be one reason that they spend so much on food, he said. ``For Hispanics, eating is serious business,'' Hayes-Bautista said.

Which is why, despite the overtures from the mainstream markets, Latinos continue to shop in droves at Latino-owned markets whose products better reflect what they want to buy.

As Latino immigrants become more settled in the United States and become wealthier, they start opening their own businesses, said Stan Thomas, business development specialist for the Mid Valley Chamber of Commerce.

``As . . . the affluence in that community has grown, people in that community say, hey, I'm going to open a Latino store. I'm making money, I'm saving money, I'll open a store,'' Thomas said.

Immigrants from Mexico often lean heavily toward the retail food industry because many had worked in supermarkets back home, according to Soto.

``That is a trend that is transpiring right now - you're going to see it even grow,'' Soto said.

A majority of Latino foods are sold out of smaller independent stores. For example, of the 10,000 grocery stores supplied by wholesale distributor Mercado Latino Inc. - from mom-and-pop stores to the major chains such as Lucky - 51 percent of the products go to the small operations, said Richard Rodriguez, senior vice president of marketing for the City of Industry-based company.

``Independents generally put more emphasis on their Hispanic products, even though there are some chains that have become more focused,'' Rodriguez said.

For instance, Lucky Stores Inc. has offered for about 15 years ethnic foods that reflect the neighborhood of each store.

``That's been something that has captured a lot of their sales,'' Rodriguez said. ``Still, the independents have an edge, because they can change the looks of their stores almost overnight. They can run promotions, they can build displays - basically they can react a lot faster.''

Lucky's ``neighborhood stores'' concept was developed in the early 1980s in recognition that each store was surrounded by communities with different demographics, Lucky Stores spokeswoman Judie Decker said. She said about 20 percent of the products offered at each store are tailored to the neighborhood.

It's all about creating an environment in which different ethnic groups feel comfortable, she said. It goes beyond merchandise; it can come down to the language spoken by the clerks or how they greet their customers.

``The idea was to make sure that we served the Hispanic customers or African-American customer or whoever they may be, that we had the right items. And that carries across the company. We don't just do it in Southern California,'' Decker said.

Soto said de la Cruz and partners Alberto Lopez and Jose A. Lefran are smart in catering to such a wide variety of Latinos at their Super Mercado Latino. Demographically, their market is in just the right place.

``In that area you have a lot of Cubans, Salvadorans, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans,'' Soto said. ``(De la Cruz) knows who his consumers are.''

According to de la Cruz, Super Mercado Latino's customers are predominantly from Burbank, with many coming from Sun Valley and North Hollywood.

While the store caters to the broad spectrum of Latinos' national palates, some of the big chains have missed a large segment of the public by devoting only a few feet of shelf space to a limited amount of Latino goods.

``They have a small Latino section that caters only to Mexicans and ignoring other Hispanics. That's where we come in,'' de la Cruz said. ``We all speak the same tongue, but we have different tastes in food. That's what makes Hispanic culture so diverse.''

The 20,000-square-foot Super Mercado is in the building formerly occupied by Spectors Market, a popular and familiar neighborhood market that dated back several decades. It changed hands several times before de la Cruz and two other partners took it over in 1983.

``We were the first ones who turned it into a Latino trade, a Latino market,'' he said.

They kept the Spectors name because of its familiarity. ``Since it was known in the area - a lot of the older customers remember the name Spectors - we thought it wouldn't hurt to leave the signs outside,'' de la Cruz said.

After leasing the building for 13 years, de la Cruz and his partners - Lopez and Lefran replaced the original partners - purchased the store outright for $1.75 million. It's a good investment, de la Cruz said, because the store is just blocks away from the Lockheed property that is slated for development and is close to the city's Media Center and other bustling or growing areas.

``It looks like the space will gain in value in the next few years,'' he said.

Meanwhile, the store rakes in about $3 million in sales a year with some 5,000 customers a week.

They are customers like Nury Perez, who came to the United States from Cuba in 1967 and has lived in Burbank for 13 years.

Perez said she frequently goes to the nearby chain markets to pick up ice cream, sour cream and other products favored by her 19-year-old, U.S.-born daughter. But when she wants her meat cut to order or when she is looking for Cuban-style black beans, produce like yucca or the malt-and-barley soft drink Malta Hatuey, she comes straight to the Super Mercado Latino.

``This brand of beans you can't find in the American market - the yucca you can't find, the Malta you can't find,'' she said, pointing to the items in her shopping cart.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo:(1-2--color) Signs in Spanish reflect the clientele at the Super Mercado Latino in Burbank, one of many markets in the Valley catering to Latinos.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News