I don’t want to, but someone else please start these businesses in Mexico!

When it comes to finding products and services at reasonable prices, Mexico is a veritable smorgasbord of options. Beauty services abound, and fresh food — even fresh meat — can easily be found and bought the very day you need it. However, as Mexico News Daily’s resident philosopher queen and generally deep thinker, I have taken it upon myself to think of other, better business ideas that we need today.

There are actually plenty of things you can buy without even leaving your house! I hear a man selling tortillas and masa (cornmeal dough) on my street daily, and I can get garrafones of water delivered, too. Private services offer to cart my trash away. Other services are provided even though I haven’t asked for them, like the neighborhood’s self-appointed “security guard”.

Put simply, it’s fairly easy to get what you need here. Not everything is super simple, but lots of things, surprisingly, are.

But as we all know, enormous tariffs from the US could ensure that Mexico begins facing quite a bit of pain. After all, world trade only works if all parties agree to the same terms. It’s hard to say what will happen at this point, but a good general rule of thumb is that the more a country can produce for itself, the less vulnerable it is to economic exposure during political shifts.

All worries aside, I still find myself wishing that Mexico had certain other products or services. I’m not much of a business person myself, but hey! Other people are. Perhaps I can entice someone?

Following is a short list of businesses I wish people would start in Mexico.

New businesses to start in Mexico: a miscellaneous (and imprecise) wishlist

Scented candles 

I know this one may seem a little silly to you. But I am really into good quality scented candles, and they are hard to come by! I’m not encouraging anyone to steal the Yankee Candle recipes; I’m just saying I wouldn’t be mad if they did, and made them in Mexico for the local market.

The homemade candles I’ve come across are okay, but I have yet to be wowed. The first place to come out with strong-smelling pumpkin candles for the fall and pine for the winter will have my loyalty forever.

Real tea

This one was suggested by our British editor: real tea. Yes, Mexico is a coffee-drinking place. But for “real” tea drinkers like the British or those colonized by the British, our cute little “herbal infusions” just aren’t going to cut it. PG Tips and Yorkshire were mentioned. Surely there’s a good way to import the stuff! [Editors note: If you make this happen I’ll give you a raise]

I’m a hardcore coffee drinker myself, but I can still have sympathy. What if you went somewhere and Nescafé made up the entirety of the offerings?

Really nice textiles 

Curtains, tablecloths, sheets, blankets…we need more variety! And it’s not that Mexico doesn’t already produce textiles; they do. But it would be nice to see the country’s cotton farming industry take off again in a way that would let us produce really nice textiles. I mean, you can get sheets and curtains here, but the material is usually pretty, well, threadbare. We could be making 100% cotton 600 thread count sheets instead of importing them, people! And paired with the beautiful designs to be found around here, I’d think the sky’s the limit.

Same-day delivery from big box stores (like Costco and Sams)

This might seem a little silly, but it’s always struck me as odd that grocery stores have had this option since the COVID-19 pandemic, but these stores don’t! I’ve long suspected it’s simply snobbery, but I’m sure logistics has something to do with it, too.

Still, if you have some basics that you need all the time (for me, it’s the boxes of milk!), it would be awesome to not have to schlep over there.

Products to combat mold and humidity

Honestly, I’m thinking of entire stores just dedicated to this.

If Pinterest ads and YouTube Mexican dad videos are to be believed, there are solutions! And even in dry areas like Querétaro, I’ve rarely lived in places that weren’t affected by humidity. Part of the issue is that buildings are made from concrete, and concrete is porous.

The dreaded salitre (the white powder that appears on walls). Paint sloughing off the damp walls. Moldy shoes in the closet. I would pay such good money to find a consistent and effective solution to these issues!

Climate-based architecture

Along the same lines, a construction company that focused on creating residencies and buildings based on the local climate could really make a difference. Why are houses in humid Xalapa and dry Querétaro built the same way?

Our weather is going to get more extreme, not less. Weather and climate are things we’re going to need to take into consideration as we continue building. Is one’s area hurricane-prone? Round constructions. Vulnerable to earthquakes? Ask Mexico City how they build now! Susceptible to drought? We need some safe water storage!

Water-catchment systems

Speaking of water, it would be great to have more makers and installers of water catchment systems! There are a few already, but they’re simply not big enough to cover the entire country. President Sheinbaum’s plans are good, but it’s going to take even more. Projects like Isla Urbana help ensure that homes have their own water. Wouldn’t it be something if all homes were outfitted with systems like this?

So that’s my list. Some of the things on it are a bit frivolous, and others, more serious and consequential. What ideas might you add?

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, https://sarahedevries.substack.com/