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By Diana AguileraThe Fresno Bee

L

iz Roberto went away

to learn how to bakeright and then came

home to open her own wed-dingcakeshop, Crmede laCake, promising customersthat her cakes will alwaysbe made from scratch.

Whats the nature of

your business?

Liz:We specialize in cus-tom wedding cakes and spe-cial occasions cakes. Wealso do cupcakes, cakepops, dessert tables, andwere going to start doingscones and zucchini breadand persimmon bread forthe holidays.

Whats the history ofyour business?

Liz: I got my bachelorsdegree in graphic designfrom Fresno State andworked in that field forabout 15 years. Then I wasjust kind of ready for achange. I picked up andmoved up to Napa Valleyandwentto theCulinaryIn-stitute of America for thebaking and pastry class.

When I finished the pro-gram, the chef instructorthat taught the weddingcake portion hired me ather shop.

After a couple years

there I moved back homeand opened my own shop.

What is your philoso-

phy on customer service?Liz: The customer is al-

ways right.Its their bigdayso they should have whatthey want. I really want mycouples to feel part of the

process. Its a very collabo-rative effortanytimewe de-sign a cake: I need to knowthe party details, what thedecor is, because every-thing should complementeverything else especial-ly the cake.

Cakes reflectthe couplespersonality and style, andso its not just a cake to put

onthattablebecauseitstra-dition; it becomes the focalpoint of the event.

What are your biggestrewards?

Liz: When they eitherpick up the cake and to beable to see the look on theirface that I turned their vi-

sion into a realityor whenIdeliver. A lotof thetimesIllget emails or phone callssaying how great every-thing was, then I sit backand Im like: Thats why Ido it.

A l ot o f t i m es t he y(brides) come back to mewhen theyre pregnant andready to have their baby

shower. Then when theirbabyturns 1 I getto dotheircakes.I havea lotof coupleslike that, Ive known overthe years, that every yearthey come back.

Whats your favorite

type of cake to make?

Liz: Its funto dosculptedcakes; theyre differentevery time. But honestlywhen Im working on a lit-tle girls princess cake and

its just pretty and it hasflowers, thats my favorite.I justlike workingon prettycakes, but I enjoy workingon all different types ofcake.

The most popular of thesculpted cakes is the Jacka n d C o ke ; i t s a J ac kDaniels bottle and a Cokebottle.

What are your biggestchallenges?

Liz: Trying to grow thebusiness but maintain thequality at the same time be-cause I have really highstandards. Im really pickyabout everything, from myingredients to the finalproduct.

The reporter can bereached at (559) 441-6659,daguilera@fresnobee.com or@DianaT_Aguilera onTwitter.

dollar stores new customers, espe-cially those wanting groceries.

The product line of these storeshas changed dramatically and one ofthebiggest changesis theaddition offood, Davidowitz said. Right now,people are going to these stores fortheir needs more than their wants.The wants areover andthe necessityis food.

Dollar General, the largest dollarstore chain with 11,000 stores, rolledout a new concept several years agowith its Dollar General Market. Thenew store is part supermarket, partretail store, and offers a wide assort-ment of grocery items, includingfresh produce, meat and canned

goods.T h e T en n es s ee - ba s ed c ha i n

opened a market store in Fresno andanother in Clovis. Both stores wentinto former Save Mart buildings andhave been embraced by consumers,store of ficials say.

Jennifer Boyd of Fresno is a fre-quent dollar store shopper. She saysthat dollar stores provide conve-nienceand value,especiallyfor fami-

lies like hers that are on a fixed in-come.

Boyd has become a frequent cus-tomer of the Dollar General Marketat McKinley and Fruit avenues in

central Fresno.It really helps families stretch

their dollars, Boyd said. And theyhave almost everything I need, so I

dont even have to go to a large gro-cery store anymore.

Boyd saidshe isnt surprisedto seemore dollar stores coming to Fresno.

They are convenient, they are af-fordable, and they have what people

are looking for, Boyd said. If youask me, I would like to see morestores.

The reporter can be reached at(559) 441-6327,brodriguez@fresnobee.com or@FresnoBeeBob on Twitter.

DOLLARContinued from C1

dont, we have nothing.Thetwowomenlive intin-

roofed adobe shacks set be-hind chain-link fences.

Conditions, the womensaid, have changed littleover the years. They haveelectricity but no runningwater; some floors aretiled, others are dirt.

The 50 or so families liv-ingin thiscompound underbillboards for DuPontChemicals Agriseeds andGruindag triple-action in-secticides share open-airtoilets and showers.

Known asjornaleros lit-erally day laborers theyare mostly fromindige-nous, rural communities.Most speak little Spanish.

Recruited in their home-towns and loaded ontobuses for 30-hour drives toSinaloa, many recent arriv-als say they feel deceivedaboutthe conditions, oppor-tunities and pay that await-ed them.

Oncein Sinaloa,they say,they feel trapped housedin fenced compounds farfrom actual towns withmovement restricted forwhat ownerssay aresecuri-ty reasons.

Many say the farmersrefuse topay themuntil theend of the season, obligingthem to stick it out; in themeantime, they buy torti-llas, cooking oil and othersupplies on credit fromsmall stores owned by theiremployers.

They know their rightsbut cant talk about it:Theyd be out of a job thenext day, said CresencioRamirez, 32, a Triqui Ind-ian from Oaxaca who man-agedto alternatepickingto-matoes and jalapeno pep-perswith schooling, eventu-ally earning a law degree.

Asa memberof theDemo-cratic Network of Indige-nous Pueblos, he is allowedtovisit farmworkers but,he

says, is restricted in whathe may talk about. Laborlaw is not on the approvedlist.

They haveno freedomofchoice to come and gofrom the farm, change jobsor speak out about it, headded.

Farm owners counterthat they have made steadyimprovements. In the lastcouple of decades, they say,workers increasingly bringtheir entire families; evenmayors join the exodus tothe fields.

Although most laborersreturn to their hometownsat the end of the season,which tends to extend fromthe Day of the Dead in No-vember to Holy Week be-fore Easter, more havebegun to settle permanent-ly in Sinaloa in places suchas Villa Juarez, now in es-sence a roadside slum withslightly steadier housingand about 20,000 residents.

By law, the growers arenow required to provideschools, nurseries andhealth care for the estimat-ed 150,000 jornaleros(downfrom 250,000 25 years ago)andallowinspectionsby so-cial workers. The socialworkers, however, are usual-ly on the farm owners pay-roll.

By most accounts, childlabor has lessened, withfewer minors younger than14 found working in thefields. A decade or so ago,roughly 30% of fieldhandswere children. Today theportion is about 15%, withmore kids having at leastfinishedelementary school,saidTeresaGuerra,a Culia-can-basedlabor law special-ist.

Some growers now pro-videschoolrooms withcom-puters and Skype; othersstill offer ragged homeswithout floors or windows.

The farmer wants hisemployees to return. Hetreats them well so thatt h ey w il l r et u rn , a n d

theresa highpercentage ofthat, said Mario Robles,head of the vegetable com-mission of Sinaloaslargestand oldest agricultural as-sociation, representinghundreds of owners.

Some farming compa-nies are in better economicshape than others and sotheir installations are bet-ter than others, Roblesadded.But all have at leastbasic facilities.

More up-to-date opera-tions tend to be run byolder, traditional localfami-lies, many descendants ofGreek immigrants who ar-rivedin the early 1900s, andhave huge landholdings.

They may also be betterable, locals say, to resistpressure from Sinaloaspowerful drug traffickers,who have been known touse agricultural enterpris-es to launder money.

Farmers have to competein the world market, andthebetteroneshavebenefit-ed fromadvancingtechnolo-gy. Guerra said many im-provements have beenbrought about by interna-tional pressure and threatsof boycotts from abroad ifMexican producers did notcreate a cleaner, more hu-mane workplace. At thesame time, wages remainlow.

What hasnt changed isthe basic precariousness ofthe work, she said. Thecircleof povertyand lack ofeducation has not been bro-ken.Thechild ofajornalerowill be a jornalero.

Beatriz Cota, who headsthe social work faculty atthe Autonomous Universi-ty of Sinaloa, said most im-provements have beenaimed at protecting theproduct, not the person.

These have been pallia-tive programs, she said ofsuch initiatives as im-proved protective clothingand more mesh tenting toshield against the sun andinsects. There is not a

structural improvement,

which is what we need.

Sinaloa has been Mexi-

cos principal provider of

vegetables for more than a

century, offering such

c ro p s a s b e ll p e pp e rs ,

squashand eggplant in addi-

tion to tomatoes. That has

given the g rowers enor-

mouspoliticalcloutin Mex-

ico City.When the federal govern-

ment recently announced

planstoraisetaxesonfarm-

ers(whobenefit from multi-

ple exemptions) as part of a

wider fiscal overhaul, the

governor of the state, Man-

uel Lopez Valdez, traveled

tothe nationscapitalto per-

sonally lobby top lawmak-

ers.The result: Agriculture

was one of the few indus-

tries spared a full tax hike.

Growers thankedthe gover-

nor with full-page ads in

local newspapers.

Output! Output! is

what Ines Gomez says the

foremen inthe fieldscontin-ually shout at the pickers

andplanters.They have pro-

duction quotas to meet, a

certain number of crates or

bags per section of crop, de-

pending on the vegetable.

Gomez, 32, spent the

other day weeding tomato

patches, as she has done

since she was 10. Every six

months or so she returns

home to the troubled state

of Guerrero, devastated re-

cently by f looding.

With what we earn, we

cannot make ends meet,

she said, listing such hard-

ships as having to provide

her own water to drink andeatingmeals of tortillawith

tomatoes that have fallen to

the ground and are rotting.

Yet she returns every

year and has done so for

22 years. It is necessity,

she said.

The reporter can bereached atwilkinson@latimes.com.

MEXICOContinued from C1

Q Crme

de la Cake

By Stan ChoeAssociated Press

It mayseem primitive tosome, but not so long ago,most investors figured outfor themselves how muchof their 401(k) retirementplan to put into stocks orbonds. Now, more are let-ting a target-date mutualfund take care of that, par-ticularly youngerworkers.

One of every three sav-ers with a 401(k) plan ad-ministered by Fidelity In-vestments has their entireaccount invested in justone target-date mutualfund, according to surveyresults released last week.

The reliance on target-date funds is even morepronounced among theyoungest workers. Some72% of those aged 20 to 24

have their complete 401(k)account balance investedin a single target-datefund. For workers aged 30to 34, its 45%.

Fo r y o un g p e op l e,manyhaventreally invest-ed in the stock market be-fore, and its a great solu-tion for them to dip theirt o e i n , s ay s J ea nn eThompson, vice presidentofthoughtleadership atFi-delity Investments.

Target-date funds arein-tendedtobe allthat a saverwill need for theirnesteggthrough retirement,by tak-ingcare ofthe strategic in-vestment decisions. Inves-

tors pick a fund set for theyear that they hope to re-tire. When that date is faroff, the fund own mostlystocks, hoping to reap thestrong long-term returnsthatstockscan provide.Asthe hoped-for retirementyear gets closer, target-date funds rely more onbonds, which carry lessrisk of a sharp drop inprice.

Fidelity is the nations

largest 401(k) administra-tor with 12.6 million ac-counts, and its survey re-

sults include data through

Sept. 30. Others have seensimilar trends. Vanguard

foundthat31% ofall contri-

butions made to the 401(k)and other defined-contri-

bution plans thatit admin-

isters went to target-datefunds in 2012, up from 8%

five years earlier. It also

saw younger workersmore reliant on target-

datefundsthan older ones.

The sharp disparity

may not be the result of aconscious choice. Nearly

one of every four 401(k)

plans that Fidelity admin-istersenrollsworkers auto-matically, up from one in

eight five years ago. Whenthat happens, the default

investment choice for con-

tributions is usually a tar-

get-date fund.

Althoughtheydont relyas heavily on target-date

funds as their younger

SeeMONEY,Page C5

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SMART MONEY

SMALL BUSINESS Q&A

JOHN WALKER/THE FRESNO BEE

Liz Roberto, owner of Crme de la Cake in northwest Fresno, displays some sweet treats.

Dollar

stores, suchas this oneat Fruit andMcKinley,haveboomed asthe econo-my has hurtmanycustomers.CRAIGKOHLRUSS/THE FRESNOBEE

A

Who has timeto choose amutual fund?

For youngpeople, manyhavent really

invested in thestock marketbefore, and

(mutual fundsare) a great

solution for themto dip their toe

in.

Jeanne Thompson,vice president of

thought leadership atFidelity Investments

Crmede la Cake

Owners:Liz Roberto Founded:2006 Location:2025 W.

Bullard Ave., Fresno Phone:(559) 431-1343 Employees:2 Annual sales:$70,000 Online:cremecake.

com

How to get yourbusiness profiledThe Bee welcomescandidates for SmallBusiness Q&A. Businesses

must meet the followingcriteria: Be locally owned.

Been in business for atleast a year. Have fewer than 50

employees. Provide an annual sales

figure for publication and bewilling to answer otherquestions. Email suggestions to

business@fresnobee.com(put Small business profilein the subject line). For more Valley

business news, dont missWord on the StreetinMonday Business.

page C2 the fresno bee BUSINESS sunday, november 17, 2013 fresnobee.com