Hess Street Foods<\/a>, into a thriving company.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Maria_Flores_Abuelas_Original_Chorizo_Paste_Hess_Street_foods_09.24.25_Diego_Medel-7.jpg\")
Abuela\u2019s Chorizo Paste, a product of Hess Street Foods, at H-E-B\u2019s Quest for Texas\u2019 Best Showcase on Sept. 24, 2025, at the Pearl. Credit: Diego Medel \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to start a business, it\u2019s another thing to grow it,\u201d Flores said. \u201cWinning the H-E-B competition catapulted my business. Now all Texas knows about us!\u201d<\/p>\n
The plant-based, preservative-free paste is everywhere. You can find jars at Central Market and Pullman Market. You can find them at H-E-B\u2019s in Boerne, Kerrville, Austin, Round Rock, Corpus Christi, Laredo, Houston, Dallas, the Rio Grande Valley and other cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt H-E-B, we\u2019re focused on supporting small, local businesses,\u201d said Crystal Royal, the company\u2019s Supplier Diversity Program Manager. \u201cAnd we want to work with brands that resonate with Texans across the state.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flores\u2019 product is evolving. The name will soon change to \u201cAbuela\u2019s Original Chorizo Seasoning.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why? \u201cBecause a lot of people feel it has meat inside, like a spread,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s just the flavor. It\u2019s the flavor our abuelas used to make.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flores\u2019 abuela, or grandmother, Luisa Maria Gutierrez, was a third-generation chorizo maker in Saltillo, the capital city of Coahuila, Mexico. In 1955, Gutierrez and her husband, Juan Jose Flores, moved to San Antonio and settled on Hess Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eventually, the family moved back to Mexico. When her husband died, Gutierrez began making chorizo to support her children. She wrote down the recipe and gave it to her Monterrey-born granddaughter, then in her early 20s. Maria Flores saved the recipe as a keepsake.<\/p>\n
Flores got married in Mexico, moved to the U.S. and lived in different cities, before settling in Crozet, Virginia (pop. 10,700). She worked as a part-time court interpreter and translator for hospitals and clinics.<\/p>\n
When the COVID-19 pandemic reached her community, Flores thought of her abuela and the chorizo recipe. She could not travel to Mexico or visit out-of-state family. But she could fill her house with the aroma of chorizo and bring a taste of Mexico to Virginia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Maria_Flores_Abuelas_Original_Chorizo_Paste_Hess_Street_foods_09.24.25_Diego_Medel-4.jpg\")
Chorizo made with Abuela\u2019s Chorizo Paste at H-E-B\u2019s Quest for Texas\u2019 Best Showcase. Credit: Diego Medel \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
Into the kitchen she went. After numerous attempts, Flores finally replicated her abuela\u2019s chorizo. She shared her creation, uniquely seasoned pork sausage, with neighbors. They encouraged her to start a chorizo business.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of them didn\u2019t have any idea what chorizo was,\u201d Flores said. \u201cBut they wanted more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flores and her family relocated to San Antonio in 2021. Two years later, she started her business. In honor of her grandparents, she named it after the street they once lived on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted people to have a memory of home in their pantries \u2014 a way to reconnect with tradition, with the aromas of the past and with the legacy of our ancestors,\u201d Flores said. \u201cI wanted people to taste the very best chorizo flavor. And I wanted to share my own memory of chorizo as a note of gratitude to this country, and as a warm embrace for those who are far from home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The start-up hit a roadblock. The cost to mass produce chorizo was prohibitive. Unable to see a way forward, Flores wondered, \u201cIs this the end of the road for me?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another idea emerged. What if she simply made the paste? Flores remembered a bowl in her abuela\u2019s kitchen. She remembered a paste-like substance with a mixture of flavors. Why not pivot from making chorizo to putting chorizo flavored paste in a jar?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried it out with some chefs,\u201d she said. \u201cThey loved it and we didn\u2019t change one thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several months after launching Hess Street Foods, Flores applied for the H-E-B brand competition. She did not expect to win.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Maria_Flores_Abuelas_Original_Chorizo_Paste_Hess_Street_foods_09.24.25_Diego_Medel-5.jpg\")
Maria Flores, founder of Hess Street Foods, hands out samples to attendees of H-E-B\u2019s Quest for Texas\u2019 Best Showcase on Sept. 24, 2025, at the Pearl. Credit: Diego Medel \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral factors made Hess Street foods stand out,\u201d said Royal from H-E-B. \u201cBut most importantly, Maria\u2019s story was relatable. And through her products, she shares her family\u2019s history, which is inspired by tradition and the deep flavors of her abuela\u2019s cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flores recently shared her story with a gathering at SA Startup Day at Geekdom<\/a>. She recalled her abuela cleaning chilies, peeling garlic and blending spices from whole to ground, a process that took hours.<\/p>\n\u201cThat\u2019s exactly how we do it,\u201d Flores said. \u201cBut of course with state-of-the-art equipment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flores marvels at the journey: from a kitchen in Mexico to a company in San Antonio to a product sold on shelves throughout Texas. \u201cAbuela\u2019s Original Chorizo Paste\u201d brings a taste of Flores\u2019 childhood to homes across the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maria Flores had no culinary training. She had little business experience and minimal financing to turn an out-there…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":639505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[272322,5229,120115,272323,272324,28903,42033,54173,272325,101556,7202,7203,358,7453,3187,7593,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,20705],"class_list":["post-639504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-abuelas-original-chorizo-paste","tag-america","tag-central-market","tag-chorizo-paste","tag-chorizo-seasoning","tag-geekdom","tag-heb","tag-hess-street-foods","tag-maria-flores","tag-pullman-market","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-typefeature","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wc-750-1000"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116190067343568911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}