While growing up in South Kansas City, Idida (Dida) Avila spent hours in the kitchen with her mother preparing their family’s traditional Puerto Rican and Mexican dishes. Over the years, Dida’s love of cooking grew and she began to develop recipes of her own.
Dida created her salsa in 1995 when a friend gave Dida vegetables from the garden and she didn't want them going to waste. She gave her salsa to family and friends who, in addition to eating with chips, used the salsa in the preparation of taco meat as a healthy alternative to commercial pre-packaged, preservative-filled taco seasonings.
"Everyone kept telling me how much they loved my salsa and that they would buy it if they could," Dida says, "but I never really thought of it as a way to make a living. It was just something I loved to do."
So, in 2000, Dida made a big batch, packaged it in deli containers and set up a booth at the City Market in Kansas City. Demand quickly outgrew what she could produce in her kitchen. She found a commercial producer in 2004 and began marketing to gourmet retailers in the Kansas City metro and surrounding areas.
In 2007, Dida partnered with Ralph and Carol Maser. Since then, the three have opened their own manufacturing plant just south of Kansas City and obtained city-wide distribution into more than 90 grocery and gourmet stores. Mama Dida's team demos weekly at stores throughout the area, where they get to do what they love the most - supporting the stores while meeting customers and handing out samples.
"Our salsa sells itself," Dida says, "Once people taste it, we just have to get out of the way!"
~Mama Dida's~ to add text.
Dida's Story
