Tortilla maker nurtures fresh-daily reputation.

Byline: RETAIL NOTEBOOK By Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

Ciro Gutierrez's ambition is to do for the tortilla what Krispy Kreme has done for the doughnut.

To sell them fresh each day, and preferably still warm from the baking.

"All my life I've eaten fresh tortillas," says Gutierrez, who grew up in the Mexican state of Queredaro, about 150 miles north of Mexico City. "I came here two years ago, to the state of Oregon, and I could not find a fresh tortilla."

Gutierrez, an evangelical pastor, came to the Eugene area to spread the word of God, but also has found time to share the gospel of the immaculate tortilla - pure and fresh.

When he says "fresh," Gutierrez is talking about tortillas made the old-fashioned way: dried corn kernels cooked in a lime-water solution and left to soak overnight, then rinsed and stone-ground to a fine masa dough. The dough is then flattened, cut and baked, with nothing in the finished product but corn and water.

Gutierrez is in his fifth month of operating his Mana del Cielo (Manna from Heaven) tortilleria in a Gilbert Shopping Center storefront on Highway 99 in Eugene that he shares in a symbiotic business relationship with the Taco Empire taqueria and the Harvest panaderia, or Mexican bakery. The taco restaurant uses his tortillas for everything from tacos to chips, and the bakery uses his corn dough in its tamales.

"People, maybe they come to buy tortillas, and they see the bread and the tacos," he says. "That was the purpose."

Gutierrez has checked with the only two United States suppliers of masa-grade dried corn, and believes that his is the only tortilleria in Oregon that makes from-scratch tortillas. One tortilleria in Washington uses the same process, but all others in the two states use a preground masa harina mix, which contains some preservatives, he says.

"It is not the same," he insists.

Which can be both an advantage and a disadvantage.

His preservative-free tortillas are soft and flavorful, but they can be left unrefrigerated for only a couple of days before drying and losing their flavor. They can be used for a couple of weeks if refrigerated, but tortillas made in the typical way, with preservatives, can last for a month or more.

Restaurateurs "tell me to make them with preservatives, then they will buy from me. But I will always make them without preservatives," he says.

The tortillas sell for 75 cents a dozen, or $1.50 for about 2 1/2 dozen. A stack of tortillas that size weighs one kilo, or 2.2 pounds.

There's no charge for customers to watch the tortilla production, and Gutierrez invites people to call the store at 607-9561 to check on his daily schedule.

He hopes to build enough clientele to be able to make a fresh batch of tortillas every day. Currently, he makes from 100 pounds to 350 pounds of tortillas every other day.

"If I can sell 350 pounds a day, I will make it every day," Gutierrez says. "So I need people to come and buy it, and they get it fresher."

He hopes that once the business takes off, he will be able to employ six or seven people in the tortilla factory alone.

But he and his partners in the shared storefront at 1136 Highway 99N - Jesus Medina in the bakery and Jose Leanos in the restaurant - agree it's been an up-and-down first few months of operation, trying to build a following from scratch.

"It's been quite a ride," says Leanos, serving a slow but steady stream of afternoon lunch customers. "But we're riding it, to the end."

CAPTION(S):

Evan and Jesus Medina share their bakery's business space with Manna from Heaven.