VP of Operations · Hatch Chile Store

Taylor Graciano

Sister of our founder, fifth-generation Hatch Valley family, and the keeper of our family recipes.

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Born Into the Hatch Valley

I’m Taylor — my brother Preston founded the Hatch Chile Store, and I grew up on the same fifth-generation chile heritage he did. Our family, the Franzoys and Berridges, has farmed the Hatch Valley of New Mexico for over a century. Chile wasn’t a product to us growing up; it was the smell of roasting season, the work that filled the fall, and the food on the table at every holiday.

I was named Taylor Grace after our great-grandmother, Grace “Dabaw” Berridge — a heavenly cook whose food I still dream about. When I was seventeen or eighteen, my grandmother Judy “Mamo” Berridge taught me to make Dabaw’s pecan pie. I thought I was just spending time with her. I was really being handed a job: I’m the pecan-pie maker for the family now, two or three of them every Thanksgiving and Christmas.

What I Do at Hatch Chile Store

I helped build this business while I was still in college, and today I serve as VP of Operations. That means I spend my days on the parts of the store most customers never see but always feel:

Operations & fulfillment — making sure fresh-pack season runs on time and that frozen, roasted chile reaches families across the country in good shape.
The family recipes — I’m the one who writes down and tests the dishes our family actually makes, from Dabaw’s pecan pie to the green chile classics, so home cooks can make them too.
Keeping it authentic — protecting the standard that the chile we ship is real Hatch Valley chile, grown the way our family has always grown it.

It’s the same goal my brother started with: respect the chile, respect the people growing it, and make it easier for a family two thousand miles away to put real Hatch green chile on their table.