A warehouse in Bristol is using traditional methods to produce up to 4,000 authentic Mexican tortillas in a day. Masa Tortilla supplies to stockists and restaurants in Bristol and across the UK.
Chris Hall, 39, originally from Reading, moved to Bristol with his wife Kerry in 2015 after spending some time in Australia working in the travel industry. It was during this time he fell in love with Mexico and Central America - especially the cuisine - and spent six months living there.
“My first impression of the food was how different it was from Mexican food in the UK at the time. It was all Tex-Mex,” Chris told BristolLive. “I got out there and asked ‘where are all of the burritos and fajitas?’ They don’t eat that.”
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Chris was taken to the local markets to experience the different flavours and ingredients. He was shown recipes and was inspired to that them back to the UK in the wake of renowned chef Thomasina Miers winning Master Chef and launching the popular street food chain, Wahaca.
The couple channelled their love of the culture and cuisine into setting up their own food truck called The Little Taquero - formerly known as The Little Taqueria, which had to be changed following Cease and Desists from a company in London. They had one of the very first food trucks in Bristol at the start of the Harbourside market bringing tacos with authentic methods and flavours across the region.
Chris continued: “We always made fresh tortillas because it was something I didn’t want to compromise on. After three years of doing it by hand we imported the machine from Mexico to make things easy, but to try and justify the cost of importing it we thought ‘if we can supply a few other places - restaurants, shops, delis, then we can justify it. It took off because they weren’t really any places selling fresh tortillas.”
Initially, Chris was producing his tortillas by hand on a tortilladora until they imported ‘Maria’ their tortilla machine ‘Hecho en Mexico’ (Made in Mexico). They decided to throw in the towel with the food truck and move into selling tortillas full-time, allowing them to have their weekends back, which is important to spend time with their three-year-old son.
The original process of making corn flour goes back thousands of years. Chris imports masa flour from Mexico - as, in his experience, it isn’t as good when replicated on UK soil. The flour is free from gluten, GMOs and preservatives.
“Our machine can do around 750 tortillas an hour. The other day we had a 90kg day which was just over 4,000 tortillas,” he said.
Chris is in the warehouse with Masa Tortilla from Wednesdays to Fridays, which he shared with a number of businesses including Bristol salsa producer Salsa Stories. They also sell flour, tortilla presses and warmers for people who want to make them at home. The store in Lawrence Hill and online shop also offer handpicked ingredients like dried chillis, chipotle, jalapenos and a range of hot sauces, all cupboard food items you might expect to find in a family home in Mexico.
“We share a unit with a couple of other traders. Our immediate neighbour is Salsa Stories, which makes fresh salsa.” available in Bristol stockists and at markets around the South West.
“Now, I think it is quite well known, we’re getting more and more people ordering through the website because they really like proper tortillas. They actively reject the Tex-Mex stuff. More people are also wanting more authentic ingredients like dried chillis to make those types of recipes at home.”
Masa Tortilla supplies to Bristol pop-ups, restaurants including Dos Dedos in Bath, and shops across the UK along with building a customer base with people cooking at home. It has recently introduced a subscription service of tacos from £3.25 billed every four weeks.
Chris remembered: “In Mexico, every town has a tortilleria. Every morning they do the rounds like a milkman. Where I was it was a banged-up VW van with a megaphone strapped to the roof and they announced that they were there, then people come out of their house and buy fresh tortillas. I wanted to do something similar where it can just drop through people’s letterboxes.”
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