Bueno Foods has been committed to this community since 1951. A conscious decision was made to stay in the Barelas community to bring jobs to this economically-depressed "Pocket of Poverty" and where the Baca family has its roots. Bueno Foods employs about 225 people year-round and up to 350 people during peak season. Bueno Foods offers a wide variety of workforce benefits, including medical, dental, disability and life insurance, a 401k profit-sharing plan with company match, compensated leave for holidays, vacation, illness and bereavement, tuition reimbursement, second language programs, ongoing education and training opportunities, and product discounts. Bueno Foods also offers an aggressive internal promotion program. There are countless examples throughout every department of internal promotions, based on merit. Manufacturing is a growing and very important part of the Albuquerque business base. As its payroll and purchases ripple through the economy, Bueno Foods supports secondary businesses and employment Also, Bueno Foods brings money back home for local reinvestment from its sales outside of the community.

Bueno Foods (El Encanto, Inc.) has been creating New Mexican products for our customers since 1951. We’re a local, family-owned, minority and woman-owned home-grown company. And we are now celebrating our seventh decade! In these seven decades, we have grown into the Southwest’s premier producer of New Mexican and Mexican-style foods.

Bueno Foods stays true to our cultural heritage through the New Mexican food we produce. Our New Mexico history is at the heart of every product we make. We flame roast green chile to celebrate the time-honored New Mexican chile roasting tradition. Like our ancestors before us, we still use the ancient tradition of nixtamalization for our corn products and we continue to stone grind all of our corn for tortillas and tamales. And at the core of our prepared food products are traditional recipes that have been passed down through generations.

At Bueno Foods, our purpose is to have a positive influence on people’s lives through our products and organization. We strive to make people’s lives better with the opportunities and jobs we provide and through our community involvement.

From our inception, Bueno Foods has always believed in giving back to our community. We are a home-grown part of this community and we want to make a difference.  

We support a host of organizations through United Way, such as those that serve the most vulnerable in our community including impoverished children and women, the homeless and hungry.

We regularly donate thousands of dollars of food to local food banks, to centers that feed the homeless and to community organizations for their fundraising activities.

We continually support many church and community fundraising activities by contributing product, money and volunteers especially for programs that benefit women and children. We participate in and sponsor local fundraising events for many causes.

During difficult COVID times, we have supported the hundreds of workers at UNMH with a morale boost--in the form of thousands of free packages of our signature products--chile and tortillas.

The Baca brothers returned home after serving in World War II (1946) and scraped enough money to start a small neighborhood grocery store called "The Ace".  They began selling their mother's delicious meals in the store and the traditional dishes were a hit, but they realized their growth would be limited and they needed to expand on their dreams.

At first the small operation was quite successful.  However, when large grocery store chains such s Piggly Wiggly and Safeway came to Albuquerque, they realized they would not bel able to compete with the big stores.  They were determined to make their business work, and began to think of other ways they could grow.

In the early 1950s every household was getting a freezer and frozen vegetables were becoming the rage.  The brothers had the idea to take chile, roast it over an open flame as as the New Mexico autumn tradition dictated, and freeze it so that people could enjoy green chile year-round.

The brothers formed a partnership and moved their operation to Airway Road, the site of their childhood home.  They began manufacturing corn and flour tortillas on a pie crust roller, red chile, tamales and posole.  And with this handful of products, and 5 employees, Bueno Foods was born in 1951.