The Wellness Stores have generated a particular expectation among the population, but the reason is simple: because they are the place of distribution of the State’s brand of products, Wellbeing.
Mexico City, November 2 (However).- Aracely Quevedo Soto made a long journey of at least three hours from the State of Mexico until the Mexico City. It is not a forced displacement, nor an unavoidable commitment: he does not go to work, he does not have classes, or a doctor’s appointment; There is no appointment marked in your agenda. However, he decided to tour the city of his own free will, with a specific purpose: to reach a Wellness Store. He does it because he wants to, but also because, of all the possible options, it is the only store he knows and can access.
“I come here because it is the only store I know so far and I don’t really care how long it takes to come get the products and support each other,” says Aracely.
It’s 8:45 in the morning. The store is not fully open yet, but the metal curtains have already been raised, allowing people to peek behind the glass. Eyes are focused on the employees who carefully place bottles of three products on the shelves: chocolate, honey and coffeeand. They all carry the same label: the Wellbeing brand. These products are, without a doubt, the most sought after by those who arrive early.
The audience is mostly adults and older women. They are not necessarily the regular customers of the area—the nearby workers, who have a street stall—but rather citizens who live several kilometers away, some even in other municipalities or even in other states. They come looking for those products that, they say, they cannot find anywhere else.
Las Wellness Stores They have generated a particular expectation among the population, but the reason is simple: the brand of State products, and particularly chocolates.
“Our stores become very important because they are where we can distribute everything that is our Bienestar brand,” María Luisa Albores González, General Director of Food for Wellbeing, tells the SinEmbargo cameras.
Albores explains that one of the aspects that have made these stores relevant is that, through them, Bienestar brand products are directly distributed, a State seal that seeks to connect the rural producer with the urban consumer.
“We started with three products,” he says, “which are three products consumed by the people of Mexico, but in addition to being consumed, they are produced by the people of Mexico. And when you produce these products, such as coffee, cocoa and honey, we are talking about products that contribute a lot to the environment.”
The official recalls that the brand was launched gradually in those stores, “in stages,” and that each new product has been received with enthusiasm.
María Orozco Chávez lives in San Andrés Totoltepec, in the Tlalpan Mayor’s Office. This is the second time he has visited the store. The first was out of curiosity, after watching videos about Wellness products on the internet and on television. The woman located the store on Avenida Insurgentes, very close to a Banco del Bienestar, and went exclusively to buy coffee, honey and chocolate:
“That was the first thing I bought for myself and the lady I care for. Then we brought bar chocolate and we loved it,” he remembers. Mari, on her second visit, came very early with the mission of bringing more bar chocolate:
“We are very sweet people,” she says, “but apart from honey, the lady likes it a lot, that’s why I came today. I came particularly for the Wellness products,” said the woman, who also assures that another of the factors that influence going especially to a store is the quality of the products.
“They have good quality products and also good prices,” he stressed.
The Wellbeing brand
The heart of Alimentación para el Bienestar are precisely those stores, explains Luisa Albores. “When we arrived there were 20,4500 stores, now there are 25,300 because we are growing,” he says.
The objective, he adds, is clear: to offer basic and complementary products at the best prices in areas of high and very high marginalization, as well as in remote regions where supply options were not available before.
“In addition, the instruction of the President, Claudia Sheinbaum – explains Albores – was that we have our own brand to bring excellent quality products to our stores. This is how the Bienestar brand was born.”
The three initial products were selected not only for their popularity, but also for their social and environmental significance, the official explains.
“Coffee, cocoa and honey,” he lists, “are products that take care of Mother Earth, the soil, the flowers and the fauna. But the most important thing is that those who produce them are our native, indigenous and African-American peoples.”
The official also remembers that cocoa was “the first currency in pre-Hispanic times” and that Mexico, along with Central and South America, is part of the origin of that grain. “Honey is also essential, because it is the job of the most important pollinator. They are products that contribute a lot environmentally, but also socially.”
The goal, he insists, is to pay a fair price. “We go directly to the locations and buy. In the case of coffee, we buy the grain, we send it to assembly in Córdoba, Veracruz, and we distribute in our network. For now we do not have our own plant, but we are already in the process of installing it for soluble coffee.”
84% of Mexican families, says Albores, prefer soluble coffee, which is why the first presentation was in jars of 100% Mexican coffee, purchased at a fair price. The same happens with cocoa, which they buy directly in Tabasco, and with honey produced in rural communities.
“The purpose,” he adds, “is that those who benefit the most are the fellow coffee growers, cocoa growers and honey producers.”
Without a doubt, chocolate is one of the main protagonists of the stores. In a regular Bienestar store, located at Avenida Insurgentes Sur 3483, Villa Olímpica, Tlalpan, the store barely opens and people rush to one place. Barely 40 minutes have passed and one product is already sold out: the chocolate bar.
For María Orozco, Wellness products have a clear difference with respect to commercial brands. “Even though it is a semi-sweet chocolate, it is very rich, very creamy. Honey tastes like honey, not like in other places where you no longer know what it tastes like. It does taste like the honey I ate when I was little,” she says.
And about the coffee, he adds: “It’s also very good. The coffee, the honey and the chocolate bar that I’ve tried are very good.”
Albores agrees that the intention is to offer quality products at affordable prices: “We want Mexicans to taste the best, with fair prices for both the producer and the consumer.”
“We want to be a company that brings producers closer to consumers, from the field to the table, without the cost being borne by either the producer or the consumer,” summarizes the official.
The response from the public has been encouraging, highlights the official: “We are very happy to see the lines when we launch products. They have accepted them very well.”
Where are the stores?
Although there are more than 25 thousand Wellness stores throughout the country, the population is still not clear where they are located. The case of Luis Salazar Reyes, originally from the municipality of Chihuahua, illustrates this.
Salazar visited Mexico City to see a relative, but took advantage of the trip to go to a Wellness store. “I looked on the Internet to see where they sell Liconsa milk, but the product hasn’t arrived there yet. It’s the first time I’ve come,” he says.
He says he came specifically for the Wellness products. “The chocolate caught my attention because the president said that it has 50 percent cocoa and not 2 or 3 percent of other products. I am going to take all the presentations,” he says.
Albores acknowledges that there is still a lack of dissemination: “We are building a directory so that, through the network, stores can be identified. It will be an interactive map by coordinates.”
For now, he explains, most of the stores are located “in the most remote towns, where it is often the only government presence.”
“I’m talking about the Sierra Tarahumara, in Chihuahua, and the regions of Guerrero and Oaxaca. This is where stores become extremely important to bring direct supplies to the communities.”
The interactive directory seeks to show the exact location of the stores, not by neighborhood but by coordinates, to facilitate their location. “We want people to be able to come and buy their products directly. We continue to build more stores in highly marginalized areas and we link them with the Milk for Wellbeing project,” he explains.
“The stores are very important because there we distribute everything that is our Bienestar brand,” he repeats with conviction.
Luis Salazar sums it up simply: “It’s good to support those who produce. Many have the product, but they don’t sell it because they lose more. A person from Chiapas told me: ‘Someone comes and buys us a kilo of coffee by weight per box’. That’s why I came, to support.”
The products that come
The Wellbeing brand’s star products are currently coffee, chocolate and honey; However, work is already underway on expansion. María Luisa Albores explained that the next step, which is expected to be in this month of November, will be to incorporate the bagged beans under the own brand starting in November, and that for next year or 2027 it is planned to launch wellness teas and canned beans, because this type of presentation does not require preservatives, since the pasteurization process allows its quality and flavor to be maintained.
The official also announced that the agency is advancing a project to produce corn flour. He explained that corn is currently collected in various producing entities, which is sold directly in welfare stores. The new processing plant, he said, will work with corn from small producers, mainly from Chiapas, one of the most productive areas of the country.