{"id":45831,"date":"2021-07-11T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-11T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/aztec-rogue-foods-sells-healthful-local-snacks-in-new-mexico\/"},"modified":"2021-07-11T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T11:00:00","slug":"aztec-rogue-foods-sells-healthful-local-snacks-in-new-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/aztec-rogue-foods-sells-healthful-local-snacks-in-new-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Aztec Rogue Foods sells healthful, local snacks in New Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Greta
Greta Quintana and Isaac Lucero, owners of Aztec Rogue Foods, pose next to the beef jerky and some of the other food items they make and sell at the store on June 24. (Nick Gonzales\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Nick Gonzales<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

AZTEC \u2013 With at least four farmers markets in San Juan County, New Mexico, it\u2019s not hard to find locally made foods. But sometimes it\u2019s handy to have a store with regular hours. That\u2019s where Aztec Rogue Foods comes in.<\/p>\n

The business makes and sells beef jerky, trail mix, gluten-free blue-corn biscotti, and chile and beer bread mixes, said co-owner Greta Quintana.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seven different granolas and they\u2019re all gluten-free,\u201d she said. \u201cTwo are paleo- and keto-friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The store also sells an assortment of other items, such as coffee and teas, from local producers. The only item sold in the store that isn\u2019t local is a children\u2019s book written by Quintana\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n

\"Aztec
Aztec Rogue Foods opened in March in Aztec. The store sells beef jerky, trail mix and a variety of other locally made foods. (Nick Gonzales\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Nick Gonzales<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The ingredients for the shop\u2019s foods are also locally sourced. For instance, pinto beans and blue corn come from NAPI, the Navajo Agricultural products Industry, and mushrooms are grown by Aztec\u2019s Humble Fungi<\/a>. The green chile is certified by the state\u2019s New Mexico True program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to locally source everything that\u2019s in the store,\u201d Quintana said. \u201cIn this day and age, everyone wants to support local small businesses, and I think that\u2019s helped us.\u201d<\/p>\n

She and co-owner Isaac Lucero opened their store at 603 NE Aztec Blvd. in Aztec in March after selling their goods at farmers markets and the like over the past year, she said.<\/p>\n

She said that the store was largely her idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I was the driving force because I like to eat \u2026 a lot,\u201d Quintana said. \u201cMy family is traditional Chinese, and so everything revolves around food. While we\u2019re eating one meal, we\u2019re talking about what we\u2019re going to eat for the next meal. Food has always been important.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she wanted to start a business that isn\u2019t a restaurant because of the difficulty involved in starting one, especially without training.<\/p>\n

\"Blue
Blue corn biscotti and trail mixes are displayed at Aztec Rogue Foods. (Nick Gonzales\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Nick Gonzales<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cMy husband was doing beef jerky out of our house, and it seemed like everybody liked that \u2013 so he trained me to do that,\u201d she said. \u201cI figured I\u2019d get bored just doing one thing, so it morphed into a little bit more, which is a lot to undertake with just the two of us right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quinatana said the store\u2019s business model has been somewhat pandemic resistant because it isn\u2019t a place where people would go to eat.<\/p>\n

Lucero, who previously worked with Quintana\u2019s husband, said the timing of Aztec Rogue Foods was also very lucky in relation to COVID-19 restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t do a heck of a lot in late 2019 \u2013 we really started taking off in 2020, going to farmers markets,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the good thing about that is it\u2019s outdoors and people were still masking up according to the rules of the market \u2026 but it was almost like people were looking for a reason to get outside and purchase fresh produce at the market. That made our transition a little bit easier.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then by the time we got into our building, we were on the tail end of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lucero also attributes some of the business\u2019 success to its uniqueness in northwestern New Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that it\u2019s healthy and gluten-free and some of the granola are keto friendly \u2013 some people come here just for that because its hard for them to find to match their diet,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for them to find something that they really like, and once they find it, they\u2019ll keep coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then again, the draw for customers might be even simpler.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone says it tastes good,\u201d Quintana said.<\/p>\n

ngonzales@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

market opened in March, sources ingredients from the region<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1240,438,28,443],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-aztec","tag-food","tag-headlines","tag-san-juan-county-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45831"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}