60 • November / December 2026• abasto.com • FOOD INDUSTRY / EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW • Continuation of page 58 How are young and multicultu- ral shoppers changing the retail landscape? As a group, independent retailers tend to lag. Our stores focus on our primary cus- tomer today, who is increasingly older. We may not have the same connection with their children or grandchildren. That’s a shortcoming and a problem we need to solve. But no generation of con- sumers has ever been more passionate about food. They’re passionate about local products, authenticity matters a great deal to them, and they’re much more open to trying new things. In rea- lity, our audience is everyone who eats. You can’t afford to run a low-margin bu- siness like a supermarket and fail to ser- ve your entire community. What was the biggest challenge this year? To be honest, it’s tough. The policies coming out of Washington—from immigration to SNAP to tariffs—all conspire to make things harder for consumers. Inflation is very, very bad, and consumers need more va- lue. Our shoppers deserve the same deals, savings, and prices as someo- ne in a more affluent suburban nei- ghborhood. How can a small-town indepen- dent retailer use AI? I’m very optimistic about AI. I’m not at all interested in the big corporate AI deals that mega-retailers are ma- king. I’m interested in taking the data we already generate and brin- ging it down to the lowest levels, so that any young person in the produce department can walk down an ais- le with their cell phone and ask, in English or Spanish, “Are there any issues with any of the items on sale this week?” Hundreds and hundreds of stores are already doing this. What keeps you up at night? In general, I’m very optimistic. Many of our retailers make a 2% net profit on a good day, and they’ve managed to grow and stay afloat. But we have to be honest about succession plan- ning. Sometimes the children of the entrepreneurs who built these busi- nesses don’t want to work in this in- dustry the way their parents did. The hours are long. It’s very difficult. What do you like most about your job? When a family comes back and tells you, “We implemented your visual merchandising program, and sales went up 12%,” and you think: I pla- yed a small part in that. If I do my job well and the team does theirs, we help leave a legacy so that their chil- dren and grandchildren can continue to support those communities like no one else. That’s why it’s worth getting up every morning.