Luis Felipe Padrón was putting Ciego Montero soft drinks on a shelf at Sedano when someone asked him if he was a communist. Cuban-American businessman and his partner Tony Haber are caught up in the recent controversy in Miami: is the Cuban government benefiting from Ciego Montero soft drinks sold in the exile capital? Criticism has reached social media, where most of the battles or skirmishes that move public opinion are fought today.
“Cuban soft drinks are available in Miami, but children in Cuba don’t eat breakfast. There will be someone who says: They do that in Miami. Stop imagining the blockade doesn’t exist,” said one Twitter user, sharing video of the soda shelves.
Newly arrived Cubans are familiar with one of Cuba’s most popular soft drinks, Ciego Montero, available in orange, lemon or cola flavors known as TuKola, which is banned from sale in Miami due to embargo regulations.
But the Ciego Montero that Padrón sells is made in Colombia and shipped to Miami, where it serves as a mattress for other products Padrón makes and sells in the Latin American country, such as Yoyita’s Cuban biscuits inspired by his mother became.
The businessman handed over the exclusive sale of Ciego Montero soft drinks to the supermarket chain Sedano’s, which has been offering them in four of its branches for a week.
The Ciego Montero brand of Cuban soft drinks is available in Miami, but children in Cuba don’t eat breakfast.
There will be someone who says: They do that in Miami.
Stop imagining that the blockage doesn’t exist. pic.twitter.com/05OUweWHFz— Mayra Dominguez (@MayraDo57466678) June 22, 2023
Padrón, President of Always Food Sales & Consultant Corp., and his partner Tony Haber, President of beverage company QVivoBrands and owner of the Ciego Montero brand in the United States, confirm that they have no business or legal relationship with any Cuban government entity.
“That’s what hurts me about this story and why I go to bed every night saying there has to be a plan, that they’re telling me I have ties to a government I left 43 years ago, and that she did what she did.” Give me a lot of beatings because I wasn’t happy in Cuba. I saw my parents and mom doing a lot of work,” says Padrón, who was 11 when he departed via the Mariel-Key West pier.
His father was a sugar engineer from the old Amistad mill in what is now Mayabeque province, and his mother was a seamstress who tried to leave Cuba for many years. Until an uncle imprisoned in the Military Production Aid Units (UMAP) camps — where the Castro regime sent homosexuals and disaffected people into forced labor — helped eject them with the flotilla that brought more than 120,000 Cubans there to get Cuba out of the United States.
“I’m one of the tough ones. I haven’t returned to Cuba because I’m not afraid of anything and I’m sure that when I enter they will open my suitcase and take away something I’m carrying for a distant cousin I have I’m going to give up,” says Padrón.
For more than two decades, Padrón, 54, has represented the spice company McCormick with a distribution deal in supermarkets such as Fresco y Más and Winn-Dixie and prides himself on knowing “flavors” and distinguishing those that suit him. They are popular with different groups of Latinos. Pelly snacks and Findy snack paste are also sold.
Marche and Cuban nostalgia
Padrón has been interested in Cuban brands since his uncle and business mentor gave him a book on the subject 18 years ago.
“Because of the communist government, we never went back to Cuba, but we’re proud to be Cubans,” says Padrón, who had already registered three brands of Cuban beers in the United States, Mayabe, Tínima and Manacas – a business he owned had shared it with his daughter and son-in-law when Padrón found out about the existence of Ciego Montero soft drinks through his partner, a Cuban who had recently arrived from the island.
It was she who prompted him to look for the soft drink that has meaning for the palates of the youngest Cubans who did not know or no longer remembered the earlier versions of cola on the island such as the soft drink Son and Tropicola Materva , Jupiña, and other soft drinks sold in Miami today that more closely resemble the flavors that emigrants favored decades ago.
A new wave of Cubans is promoting business in Miami
When Padrón Ciego registered Montero, he learned that another Cuban had previously registered him with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in November 2021. He then contacted Tony Haber via Linkedin, who in turn inquired about Padrón.
Haber, chairman of Qvivo Brands, which markets wines like Nostalgia and Patria y Vida and Mi Cristal beer, acquired the Ciego Montero brand, which Kuba had not renewed. They got it in 2022 because they always give the brand owner a grace period to claim it.
“From time to time you have to pay a fee, which is more common when the brand is inactive,” Haber explains, speculating on the reasons why the Cuban government stopped paying for soft drink rights in the US and what the consequences are thereby he became the owner.
Ciego Montero de Cuba soft drinks are manufactured in Guane, Pinar del Río and owned by a joint venture, Los Portales SA, a partnership between Swiss multinational Nestlé SA and the Cuban government’s Food Corporation.
Haber, who began tracking Ciego Montero in the US during the pandemic, a difficult time for businesses, explains that there were two options.
“Either we became the owner of the brand, or Cuba kept the brand,” he says, pointing to the possibility that the US government would intensify its rapprochement with the Cuban government. “Then Cuba would again own the brand, could sell it in the US and really take on the profits made in Miami.”
The 49-year-old businessman, who came to Miami when he was 14, had another reason to work with Padrón to market and distribute Ciego Montero.
“Why can’t Cubans sample their country’s produce here like Puerto Ricans, Colombians and Mexicans do,” explains Haber, who sells canned Puerto Rican coquito and guarito, a sparkling Colombian brandy cocktail, also in a can, in addition to his version by Cuba Libre – Lie, says the can – under the TuKola brand by Guayabita del Pinar.
In exchange for Padrón being allowed to market Ciego Montero, “Haber has the right to market our three beers – Mayabe, Tínima and Manacas – and everything we do with wine and alcohol,” says Padrón, who foresaw the business opportunity that would result with the arrival of more Cubans.
“I knew that after July 11, 400,000 Cubans would come,” Padrón says of the July 2021 protests, which, combined with the repression and crisis on the island, led to the largest exodus of Cubans. “If they let it, the island will remain empty,” adds Padrón, who wanted to bring Cubans the taste they like.
Instead of being sweetened with corn syrup like most soft drinks in the United States, the Ciego Montero soft drinks he sells contain real sugar, Padrón explains.
The businessman began looking for the business formula in the kitchen of a Cuban cabin he has on his farm in Redland. And he didn’t give up until he found the ingredients that came closest to making Cuban lemonade. That’s why some comments on the networks that claim that the formula was given by Cuba hurt him, he reiterates.
heritage and tradition
A graduate of the FIU Business Administration, Haber understood how the mechanisms of nostalgia work from a course he took on diaspora literature, not just Cuban exile literature, he says, recalling a poem by Richard Blanco, who was one of his teachers was.
“Her family went to a hotel in Naples and cooked rice and beans,” she summarizes Blanco’s poem, confirming what she took away from the course: “Never, no matter how many years pass, people lose their nostalgia.”
This is where his desire to salvage drinks, flavors and memories began, says Haber, who launched Mi Cristal – his version of Cristal beer, the most popular in Cuba – and which comes in a can with an image of El Morro. “Production will be shut down for a few months,” he says of Mi Cristal, which is looking for a cheaper location elsewhere.
The Cristal beer brand is registered in the United States by a Peruvian company, Backus and Johnston, so no company is allowed to use that name. For his part, a Californian businessman, Martin Wadley, created Palma beer in 2019, which is said to resemble Cuba’s Cristal. Wadley managed To the label and phrase that identified Cristal: La Preferida de Cuba. In February 2022, he sued Haber and they settled out of court.
“I can’t even use a tiny palm on the label or the color green,” says Haber
He considers himself a risky businessman, but Haber is unwilling to do business with the Cuban government. On a trip to the island in 2014, he confirmed there were no opportunities to do business with “the communists” as their nature will not change, he told the El Nuevo Herald.
Padrón says that when he tells the story of Ciego Montero soft drinks to people who confront him in a supermarket, some exclaim, “You screwed the Cuban government. Good job”.
Other exiles, like former political prisoner Iliana Curra, continue to question the presence of soft drinks in Miami’s markets. “I’m concerned that Cuba is making some kind of profit,” Curra told the el Nuevo Herald, saying he’s “received a lot of calls about Cuban products being sold at Sedano’s.”
“Why do you have to take TuKola here? What’s the problem with cheap nostalgia? Here we have everything. Why does Sedano’s have to sell this when they have so many products? “Here we are refugees,” said Curra.
Republica, the company in charge of Sedano’s public relations, told the el Nuevo Herald that the supermarket chain had not commented on the matter.
For Padrón, selling Ciego Montero soft drinks in Miami is “a matter of heritage and tradition.” Haber recalls, “Many Cubans who didn’t have a chance to try these soft drinks in Cuba can now try them in Miami.”
This story was originally published on Jun 30, 2023 at 4:42pm.
Sarah Moreno reports on South Florida business, entertainment and trends. He graduated from the University of Havana and Florida International University. @SarahMoreno1585