Built on hard work,
masa and family
Before mission statements were in vogue, businesses were built on the hard work of employees and by providing good service. Ours was — and still is.
That axiom was especially true for the spate of family businesses that opened in the late 1960s that continue to operate at a profit today. Diana's Mexican Food Products is one of those family owned and operated enterprises that started from humble beginnings and continues to enjoy success that has carried its founders into the twenty-first century.
Chapter One · The 1950s
A sixteen-year-old immigrant with a trade to learn
As a young Mexican immigrant, Samuel F. Magaña came to America at the age of sixteen. He was the first employee hired by another large Mexican food company in Los Angeles, where he was eventually promoted to general plant manager — while concurrently attending night school to enhance his education.
In addition to learning a trade that would eventually be the foundation upon which the family business was built, Sam also met Hortensia, who moved from Durango, Mexico to Los Angeles in the early 1960s. The two shared a passion for American enterprise — and for each other — and were soon married.
Chapter Two · 1969
A store named after their firstborn
By 1969, armed with entrepreneurial drive and business know-how, the young couple purchased the first of what would soon become a chain of grocery, wholesale and restaurant businesses that bore the name of their firstborn daughter, Diana.
The first to open was a small grocery store in Gardena, operated by Hortensia while Sam continued to hold down his job at the plant — by then, his tenure had reached well over twenty years. Food products sold at the grocery store were authentic in every way, as Hortensia often made trips to Mexico to select items to be sold in the family's market. Tortillas were among the best-selling products in the store, and soon Diana's first tortilla-manufacturing plant opened in Maywood in 1973.
Chapter Three · 1991
El Monte puts Diana's on the map
From the mid-1970s through the early 1990s, the Magaña family business prospered. Next to open were a bakery, another tortilla plant, restaurants and a tamale processing plant.
It was the opening of the family's El Monte corn tortilla plant and a small restaurant in 1991 that put Diana's Mexican Food Products on the map in the heart of San Gabriel Valley. El Monte was chosen because of its support of business growth — and the family owns the land at each location where they operate, spending what's necessary to upgrade every site and add value to the community's economic base.
"Several members of Diana's original workforce remain today, along with many of the sons and daughters of those original workers."
Many of the one hundred employees at the San Gabriel Valley location originally lived near the Norwalk plant — and willingly uprooted their families to move closer to the new one.
Chapter Four · The Next Generation
Three kids, one family portrait
While the family business thrived and expanded, so too did the Magaña family. Two daughters, Diana and Hortensia, and a son, Sam Jr., completed the family portrait. Each of the Magaña children has worked in the business at one time or another — in fact, a larger-than-life portrait of the trio adorns the company's fleet of trucks.
Sam Jr.
A business administration graduate of Cal State Dominguez Hills, Sam Jr. serves as general manager of day-to-day operations — while pursuing his MBA part-time at Loyola Marymount University.
Hortensia
An LMU alumna with a degree in international business, carrying the family name — and its standards — into the company's global reach.
Diana
A USC communications graduate who made history of her own as the first Hispanic woman crowned Miss California 1987–88 — and later, Miss USA / World.
Chapter Four · The Craft Travels
From Norwalk to Tokyo
Today, the company's client base reaches across the Pacific into Japan, where the popularity of authentic Mexican cuisine has skyrocketed. Diana's also supplies tasty homemade tortilla chips to large casino clients in nearby Las Vegas, and produces private-label tortillas and other fine products for domestic clients in Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada and Oregon.
Through it all, the heart of the business never changed: the same grocery store counters, the same handwritten menu boards, the same masa made fresh each morning.
Chapter Five · Civic Duty
Giving back to every community we serve
For the Magaña family, business success has always carried a responsibility to give back. Diana's actively supports local law enforcement agencies, chambers of commerce, churches, and nonprofit organizations across every community where the family does business — while family members personally champion Mexican art and culture across Los Angeles, raise funds for those in need through Comité de Beneficencia, and serve on scholarship committees at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific.