A ‘staple’ of Mexican culture: Behind the scenes at a Knoxville tortilla factory

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. ( WATE ) — Tortillas have been a key part of the Mexican diet for more than 12,000 years, dating back to the Mayan and Aztec civilizations.

East Tennessee is rich in Hispanic cuisine. In addition to its Mexican restaurants, Knoxville is also home to several tortilla factories.

Tio Conejo has operated out of North Knoxville for 11 years. The Mexican market and taqueria located on N. Broadway also produces hundreds of homemade tortillas.

“Tortillas are definitely a staple,” co-owner Cielo Velasco said. “Tortillas, you can eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner. Tortillas are never a miss. They’re always on the table, you know, everybody eats them and tortillas are everything to our community.”

The simple and inexpensive process allows them to churn out hundreds of tortillas a day. 6 News went behind the scenes to see how they’re made.

“In the beginning, they do the dough, which is basically just Maseca and water, we don’t add any kind of preservatives in there. It’s like a really soft consistency, you can use it for tamales, you can use it for doing gorditas or huaraches, basically anything that has masa in it, you can do it with our dough,” Velasco said.

Maseca is corn ground into a flour like consistency.

Velasco explained, “He brings the masa in and places it inside of there, which it then makes a shape and cuts it off.”

“This is where it comes off, and it sends up this chain and gets picked up over there.”

One pound of tortillas, which includes about 14 of them, is sold for $1.75 at Tio Conejo.
The tortillas are also used for their tacos and tortas in their taqueria, and sold to other local restaurants.

Tio Conejo has two sister restaurants in East Tennessee: Tortilleria Tienda Familiar in Morristown and Tortilleria Familiar “El Arriero” in Johnson City.

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