Have you had your La Lechera today?

[Roy Karrde]

For one I want to state that I am all for the free market economy, that I believe in the free market and that it can pretty much govern prices and what not.

Now today I was on a 9 hour shift at work and was working cereal at the local Albertsons. When I noticed something wierd, we usually have a Food of the World section on the other side of the store, but over here there was a cereal called La Lechera. a Spanish Cereal that was resembled Frosted Flakes. Now granted we are busy and the cereal could have been accidently stocked over there, so I shrugged it off. It wasnt until that I noticed the tag below on the shelf, with the numbers identifying it for the cereal section that I realized that we were now stocking Spanish cereal. Now I can kind of see that Nestle's is trying something out here, seeing if a fully Spanish product with no English on it what so ever will sell in a English speaking store. So I began to wonder, how would everyone feel if this caught on? That we started getting fully Spanish products in our local grocery store, is it okay with everyone else? Or would start to wonder why as a English reading and speaking customer at a English Grocery store. Why you have to see shelf space after shelf space gobbled up by products not in your natural language? Also a picture of the box from the Mexican website of Nestles is pictured below.

http://www.nestlecereales.com.mx/productos/fotos/lechera_caja.jpg

[Metallixs Girl]

That's very strange, and I think it's just gonna make them less likely to learn English if stuff starts going in all Spanish and then y'all might as well not have a "Food of the Worlds" aisle...

[The Blue Avenger]

I know a fair amount of people who would go "Ooh! Spanish food!" and subsequently buy it for no other reason. Maybe that's what Nestle is banking on? :|

Edit: There is English on it. I don't think "Flakes" is Spanish, is it?

[mr_pikachu]

Well, "flakes" might also be a Spanish term, but pronounced "flaa-kehs."

Hmm...

*looks up word*

flake (http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/reference/dict_en_es/entry?lb=e&p=num%3Ae7661)

Then again, maybe not. :P

(I would quote it here, but TPM doesn't allow many of the characters for correct pronunciation to be displayed correctly... sorry.)

[Alucard]

If it says "Frosted Fish Eyes In Eel Jelly" in a different language, If it tastes good I'll eat it. Food is food to me. I don't care what language it's in.

[mr_pikachu]

But I think the real question is, "Will you buy it if you don't know what it is?"

In this case it's fairly obvious, but try removing all English from a box with some bran cereal. See if you get any takers.

[Silver Ledian]

Over here we have this chain of supermarkets call 'LIDL' which sells German goods, because it's a German chain. So maybe it would be a better idea to open a shop which sells only *insert nationality* goods. In saying that, I'd have no problems if goods of other nations were sold in our supermarkets...apart from not understanding the descriptions on the boxes of course :S

[Heald]

It's nothing new for local stores. My local store stocks loads of products in foreign languages, presumably because it's cheaper to buy it and have it shipped over than it is to buy English products. Go figure.

[Magmar]

Well geez, I've seen tons of Chinese food ingredients with all sorts of random Asian stuff scribbled on it, and nobody's complained before.

Every shampoo or health care product has shit in French on it.

God forbid something says something in Spanish, everyone's up in arms. Think of all the Spanish you find at a grocery store. Guacamole, taco, chili, burrito, avocado, mango, banana are all Spanish words. They sell that "malta goya" drink everywhere up here, and I know tons of people who drink it because you know, sometimes in English, you have to adopt a Spanish cognate, because tons of other languages have English cognates too. They make it and we buy it, who cares if it has a Spanish name? It tastes good. Should we ban Russian bottles of liquor? Italian menus and wine bottles? It's authentic because it's what they eat and there's plenty of them in this country who are going to know what that says. You can somehow survive in your life with one Spanish-titled cereal.

If you don't like the cereal, then go a shelf up and reach for Tony the Tiger.

If that's too much work for you, then starve.

(As you can tell, anti-Spanish immersion pisses me off.)

[Roy Karrde]

Here is the difference here Magmar, it wasn't just that the cereal was titled in Spanish. The whole box is in Spanish, from the words on the bottom of the bowl that you can barely make out, to the back of the box. All of it and I mean all of it was in Spanish. And if we lived in a Perfect World and had unlimited shelf space then I would have no problem with this. Yet we dont, and even having one pallet of boxes will take up shelf space meaning less Tony the Tiger, less Chereos, and everything else on the shelves. Who knows if this sells well they may start making more Fully Spanish boxes and more Fully Spanish products. Then again maybe not, who knows. Yet the more that this sells, the more of a chance you will be seeing La Lechera flakes taking up three, four, maybe seven spaces like Frosted Flakes is now at my store. And less of Tony the Tiger and less of everything else as they try to make room for Spanish made products to acomidate the people here that do not read English.

[Dark Dragonite]

I personally, like the "food of the worlds" aisle, if I want something asian, hispanic, whatever, I know to look there.
I live in a country that speaks predominantly English, in school, I was taught English as a subject, I took Spanish as my choice of second language.
I prefer stores to be primarily in the language, along with my country being mostly in the language I was brought up learning, not the secondary one.

EDIT: I guess I'll bring up a point that will probably still anger people, but try to see it another way...
most of the people in this country can speak English, and the all the immigrants that made this country, my ancestors, etc... had to learn English to survive. I was brought up knowing, and speaking English. Now, I understand people wish to come here to have better lives...but, is it fair for the people of this country to now have to know more languages to go about daily life, or would it be more fair for the people coming here to have to learn English?

[Magmar]

is it fair for the people of this country to now have to know more languages to go about daily life, or would it be more fair for the people coming here to have to learn English?


Some people don't get it, there's nothing wrong with having a box that has Spanish written on it, I think that somehow our lives will function, and what is wrong with making things easier for a group who really isn't a minority? Hispanics only recently began being considered minorities -_- but there's so much more living in this country today. I don't get that. I don't get why anyone is considered a minority o.O; aren't we all people?

Like... go hate on somebody for a good reason x_x;

[homeofmew]

never heard of it, however anyone remember the poekmon cereal.

eh.

Tina

[Blademaster]

LOL

Oh, yeah, I remember that... That was fun, albeit short-lived... Oh, well...

[Chris 2.1]

I used to work in a supermarket, but the oxymoronic people who ran the place without an ounce of customer service ticked me off. Anyway.

Ordering a pallet of spanish cereal? One of two things could have happened:
1) A smaller chain of the store has done a sort of beta testing of this brand of cereal and results are good, so the one you work at has enough evidence/proof/statistics to be able to order a pallet of the stuff with no anxiety about how it sells.
2) La Lechera and Frosted Flakes/next leading brand are the same cereal but its simply got spanish packaging which is unlikely but happens. Sometimes for grocery stores, its cheaper buying the same food but from abroad. Don't ask my why. Our Poundland (ie: UK Dollar Tree) sells Capri Sun in portugese packaging.

God that was boring.

Anyway I wouldnt be fussed. Cereal is cereal and I can't see it containing anything dangerous or blatantly unhealthy. It does seem a bit odd though. I doubt I'd buy it since I prefer the overloaded with sugar alternatives, or just skipping breakfast and going straight to unhealthy something.

It's great, my metabolisms crazy so I don't gain a pound. Junk food r0x0rs