FAINE ALEXANDER
Tío Pablo
It takes true grit to mortgage your house to the tune of $50,000 for a tortilla-maker, but Faine Alexander has it in spades.
The effervescent ex-Californian launched Tío Pablo, a Mexican imports and manufacturing company, from the kitchen bench in 2005 – with a cheaper mini tortilla-maker. Today, her brands can be found on the shelves of supermarkets throughout New Zealand – everything from corn tortillas to chipotle sauce and plenty in between.
Faine talks fast, moves fast… and gets stuff done. Now, she employs 40 people in her South Auckland factory with sales of $4 million-plus annually. It all started with an idea.
In the early 2000s, the youngest of her three sons was off to kindergarten, and Faine was itching to take on a project. “That’s when I realised that my degree in French was not giving me a great segue into anything… considering I never thought past how fun it would be to live in France for a year!”
For Californians, Mexican food is a staple and Faine’s husband, David, a management consultant, has Mexican ancestry. Her path crossed with a guy seeking investors in his tortilla-maker. Seeing the possibilities, Faine bought the tortilla-maker from him, one small enough to fit on her kitchen bench.
“We had
