Our Growers & Suppliers

A.V. Thomas Pro­duce is one of America’s lead­ing sup­pli­ers of fresh con­ven­tional and cer­ti­fied organic sweet pota­toes and yams in the United States. The com­pany was founded by Anto­nio Vieira Tomas, who immi­grated to the United States from the Azores Island of Pico in Por­tu­gal in 1920 and set­tled in Liv­ingston, Cal­i­for­nia.

Liv­ingston is one of the spe­cial places in the coun­try with the warm cli­mate and light, sandy soil nec­es­sary to grow sweet pota­toes, and Mr. Tomas began grow­ing them here in 1960. (Today more than 90 per­cent of California’s sweet potato crop is grown right in this area.) Mr. Tomas founded A.V. Thomas Pro­duce with 10 acres in pro­duc­tion and one small pack­ing shed in down­town Liv­ingston.

Twelve years later, his nephew, Manuel Eduardo Vieira, joined the busi­ness. Also from the Island of Pico in the Azores, Mr. Vieira had just spent 10 years in Rio de Janeiro, earn­ing a degree in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion. He would spend the next five years learn­ing the sweet potato trade at his uncle’s side.

In 1977, Manuel E. Vieira bought A.V. Thomas Pro­duce and began a new chap­ter in its his­tory, invest­ing in, grow­ing and expand­ing the busi­ness into the indus­try leader it is today.

The legacy and tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion of Japan­ese Amer­i­can farm­ers is bril­liantly rec­og­nized in a num­ber of Cal­i­for­nia fam­i­lies, one of which is Abe-​El Produce.

Abe-​El Pro­duce is a suc­cess­ful full ser­vice farm­ing, pack­ing, ship­ping, cold stor­age and pro­duce sales oper­a­tion. Abe-​El Pro­duce grows numer­ous cit­rus vari­eties, table grapes and veg­eta­bles fea­tur­ing zuc­chini, yel­low squash and eggplant.

Broth­ers Franklin and Her­bert Abe are joined by the third gen­er­a­tion (san­sei) of edu­cated, cre­ative and pro­fes­sional fam­ily mem­bers. The farm­ing tra­di­tions and sac­ri­fices made by Issei (Japanese-​born) and Nisei (American-​born) are hon­ored in this vital fam­ily business.

Ken Barr made the deci­sion to buy his own pack­ing shed in 1989. He wanted to have bet­ter con­trol over the grow­ing, pack­ing and ship­ping of his Lake County pears. He left the com­fort zone of a grower coop­er­a­tive and took on the respon­si­bil­ity of pack­ing and ship­ping his pears.

A small shed owned by the Kelseyville Pack­ing Com­pany was pur­chased and Adobe Creek Orchards was born. Ken felt that by plant­ing the orchards, rais­ing the trees, tak­ing care of the fruit, pick­ing the fruit and then hav­ing con­trol of the pack­ing and ship­ping put him in a very spe­cial and unique posi­tion. He was and still is one of the very few who can lay claim to this farm­ing accomplishment.

In 1990, Ken joined forces with his brother, John Barr and busi­ness part­ner, Broc Zoller and formed Adobe Creek Pack­ing Co., Inc. They each came to the busi­ness with their own spe­cial tal­ents. Ken con­trolled the orchards, John had the mechan­i­cal knowl­edge of run­ning pack­ing sheds, and Broc, (The Pear Doc­tor) is trained as a plant pathol­o­gist & pest con­trol advi­sor. John Barr passed away in 1996 and Broc retired in 2007; Ken con­tin­ues to grow, plant, har­vest, pack and ship the best of Lake County pears. This includes Bartlett, Star Crim­son, Rosi Red, Bosc and Golden Rus­set Bosc. Enjoy sea­sonal pears from Adobe Creek!

Andy Boy has a rich his­tory as an indus­try trend-​setter, not a fol­lower. From the day the com­pany was founded by Stephen and Andrew D’Arrigo, two immi­grants from Messina, Sicily, inno­va­tion has been its hall­mark. Andy Boy cus­tomers can con­fi­dently look to them for excel­lence in every­thing they do, from seed research and devel­op­ment to entirely new approaches to pack­ag­ing, pack­ing, and even shipping.

With third gen­er­a­tion D’Arrigo fam­ily mem­bers at the helm of their West Coast oper­a­tions, the tra­di­tions of being the very best in the busi­ness emanate from the top and are car­ried out by their ded­i­cated fam­ily of almost 2000 employees.

Andy “Andy Boy” D’Arrigo is 92 years old and has retired but remains active by com­ing into the office from time to time. John D’Arrigo serves as President/​CEO and Chair­man of the Board for D’Arrigo Bros. Co., of CA.

Andy Boy Broc­coli, Broc­coli Rabe, Cau­li­flower, Fen­nel, Romaine Hearts, Cac­tus Pears and Nopal­i­tos are the company’s main­stays, but Andy Boy is also able to pro­vide a full scope of pro­duce needs and con­sol­i­da­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties with an extra­or­di­nary level of service.

Richard Bag­dasar­ian Inc., was incor­po­rated in 1952 and is located in the heart of the Coachella Valley’s agri­cul­tural grow­ing com­mu­nity. They are a fam­ily owned and oper­ated grower, ship­per and mar­keter of Cal­i­for­nia table grapes, cit­rus and vegetables.

As one of the larger grow­ers of Cal­i­for­nia table grapes and cit­rus in the Coachella Val­ley, Richard Bag­dasar­ian Inc. is respected world­wide and has nat­u­rally estab­lished a national pres­ence in the veg­etable indus­try via Pasha Mar­ket­ing, LLC. They apply the high­est stan­dards of pro­duc­tion to every vine, tree, and plant they grow.

Com­mit­ted to giv­ing you the best tast­ing, high­est qual­ity table grapes, they grow, har­vest, ship and mar­ket 12 dif­fer­ent vari­eties of table grapes..

Enjoy local Cal­i­for­nia table Grapes today!

Chuck Baker is a 5th gen­er­a­tion fam­ily farmer who grows lus­cious Cal­i­for­nia pears in the Sacra­mento River Delta region (Sut­ter Island). The Baker fam­ily has been farm­ing on 700 acres of prime pear orchards (from Court­land to Ryde) since the early 1860s – the orig­i­nal land grant deed is dated 1854 (Hus­tler Ranch and Hus­tler pear label).

Many of the exist­ing old growth trees are at least 140 years old and still pro­duc­ing some of the best eat­ing fruit grown in the state. Cal­i­for­nia Bartlett pears are the main crop for Baker Ranch with cher­ries and pear vari­etals like Bosc, Star Crim­son, Seck­els and Forelles bal­anc­ing out the harvest.

In addi­tion to over­see­ing his fam­ily farm, Chuck Baker also over­sees many of the pear orchards that grow for All­State Pack­ers, a pre­mier fruit packer and ship­per in Lodi. You know their fruit under the labels River­maid, McCor­mack, Golden Glow, Party and Hill­side. Stew­ard­ship of the land and time hon­ored grow­ing prac­tices by Chuck Baker and fam­ily are appar­ent in the won­der­ful fruit they lov­ingly produce!

The Baloian Fam­ily is a 4th gen­er­a­tion farm­ing fam­ily that has been in the pro­duce busi­ness since 1917. Charles Baloian started the company’s first enter­prise: Charles Baloian Com­pany, Inc. in Fresno, Cal­i­for­nia which was a full-​service pro­duce busi­ness. Charles’ two sons, James and Edward, returned to Fresno in 1945, after serv­ing their coun­try in the World War II, join­ing Charles as partners.

In 1965, Charles and his sons formed Pam Pak Dis­trib­u­tors, Inc., which is Baloian Packing’s cur­rent #1 label, to pack­age and mar­ket fresh veg­eta­bles from a large num­ber of local grow­ers who sup­plied Charles Baloian Com­pany, Inc. In an effort to increase their annual busi­ness and to sup­ply the ris­ing local demand for their prod­uct, Pam Pak Dis­trib­u­tors, Inc. began its own farm­ing oper­a­tions in 1968.

Today, they grow vari­ety pep­pers, vari­ety let­tuces, vari­ety squash, red onions and vari­ety veg­eta­bles (turnips, beets, rutaba­gas, cucum­bers, green beans, spinach, yams and more). Their fresh prod­ucts can be found in both Pam Pak and Baloian Farms packaging.

Freshly presssed juices are the Bar­sotti family’s pas­sion! All juices are hand­crafted in small batches at the family’s solar-​powered Apple Hill Ranch, sur­rounded by orchards and pines in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada moun­tains in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Their team is com­mit­ted to press­ing only the best fruits and veg­eta­bles in cre­at­ing their tempt­ing vari­ety of juices, lemon­ades, and blends, each flash pas­teur­ized with NO preservatives.

They freshly press top qual­ity juice all year long at their pro­duc­tion facil­ity that rivals many small pro­duc­ers of freshly pressed juice. They’ve replaced the flatbed trucks loaded with cases of juice and piles of ice with refrig­er­ated semi-​trucks and vans. Bar­sotti juices are also flash pas­teuized to ensure your safety.

Look for their trucks trans­port­ing juice to your local super­mar­kets and food estab­lish­ments through­out North­ern California.

“We hope you enjoy our juices and we guar­an­tee that the qual­ity is the best!” –Gael & Joan Barsotti

Blos­som Hill Orchards has been fam­ily owned for over 90 years, with over 35 years grow­ing and ship­ping apricots.

In 1917, Louis Lucich started grow­ing apri­cots and prunes in the Santa Clara Val­ley. In 1959, his son moved the fam­ily to Pat­ter­son where they con­tinue their busi­ness today. Today, the third gen­er­a­tion keeps the fam­ily tra­di­tion growing.

In an ever chang­ing mar­ket, the team at Blos­som Hill has adapted and grown to meet the needs of their cus­tomers, with over 1000 acres of apri­cots, 200 of which are now organic. Although apri­cots are a very sen­si­tive fruit, the team at Blos­som Hill strives to grow, pack, and ship apri­cots so that cus­tomers will find them sweet and juicy.

They also make food safety an inte­gral part of their oper­a­tion. Their pro­duce is deli­cious as well as safe and pathogen free. Blos­som Hill Orchards has imple­mented a first-​class Global Food Safety Ini­tia­tive (GFSI) bench­marked food safety pro­gram and is work­ing towards fur­ther certifications.

Bolt­house Farms is a 4th gen­er­a­tion fam­ily farm, located in California’s fer­tile San Joaquin Val­ley. The Bolt­house fam­ily started com­mer­cial veg­etable farm­ing in west­ern Michi­gan. They con­tin­u­ally improved veg­etable vari­etis and made advances from field pack­ing cel­ery to stor­ing onions for off-​season sup­ply. The veg­eta­bles grown on the fam­ily farm were sold to local can­ner­ies, includ­ing com­pa­nies like Ger­ber Prod­ucts, The Camp­bell Soup Com­pany, and H.J. Heinz.

By 1950, Bolt­house Farms was a lead­ing sup­plier of car­rots to Mid­west proces­sors. In 1990, William J. Bolt­house intro­duced Short­cuts, car­rots that were cut, peeled and ready-​to-​eat. Demand soared and addi­tional plants were added. The com­pany added juices and juice mix­tures to its lineup after demand by Japan. Addi­tion­ally, Bolt­house packs organ­i­cally grown car­rots under the Earth­bound Farm label.

In 2015, they devel­oped a line of cold-​pressed & organic juices called 1915. 1915 prod­ucts are made only with high-​pressure pro­cess­ing which helps pre­serve the nutri­ents of the juice. The name 1915 is a nod back to sim­pler times, prov­ing that the Bolt­house Farms tra­di­tion con­tin­ues today along with inno­va­tion, fresh­ness, health, con­ve­nience, and value.

Booth Ranches, LLC is a fam­ily owned, fully inte­grated grower, packer and ship­per of pre­mium fresh cit­rus. They have been grow­ing cit­rus for more than 50 years in the San Joaquin val­ley, and pack­ing at two pack­ing­houses near the head­quar­ters in Orange Cove, California.

The late Otis Booth was a busi­ness exec­u­tive when he inher­ited a 40-​acre cit­rus grove in 1950. Accord­ing to Loren Booth, Otis Booth’s daugh­ter and cur­rent owner of the cit­rus com­pany, that orig­i­nal grove is known sim­ply as Ranch 40. Today, Ranch 40 is a small slice of the 8,500 acres of Booth Ranch navels, valen­cias and spe­cialty cit­rus in the San Joaquin Val­ley from Fresno County south into Kern County.

As his invest­ments sky­rock­eted Otis Booth’s wealth into the Forbes 400, oranges became a pas­sion. “Land and a grow­ing busi­ness and farm­ing on the land is some­thing rather more tan­gi­ble than a secu­ri­ties port­fo­lio,” Booth told Forbes mag­a­zine in 2005.

As some grow­ers switched to other com­modi­ties, Booth remained com­mit­ted to cit­rus, though he did add a cat­tle ranch in 1971. Adding acreage and mar­ket­ing fruit grown only by the com­pany helped make it a truly inde­pen­dent grower-​shipper.

In 1968, when Bob and Rod Grimm set up their first road­side pro­duce stand, the broth­ers made a promise to always take care of the cus­tomers. More than 3 decades later, they are still hon­or­ing that promise. That has never been more evi­dent than with Grimmway Farms’ organic divi­sion Cal-​Organic.

Start­ing with a quar­ter acre of let­tuce in 1983, and an idea of doing things dif­fer­ently, they have taken the busi­ness to include 60 dif­fer­ent year-​round veg­etable items. Today the busi­ness has grown to thou­sands of cer­ti­fied organic acres. It still remains fam­ily owned and oper­ated, while pro­mot­ing fam­ily val­ues and integrity every day.

Work­ing hard to pro­vide per­sonal ser­vice and find­ing solu­tions for pro­duce needs, Cal-​O is con­stantly advanc­ing the tech­nol­ogy of organic agri­cul­ture to the high­est lev­els. As one of the only farms in California’s south­ern San Joaquin Val­ley to con­vert to organic agri­cul­ture, they are very proud of their rich farm­ing heritage.

Bel­gian Endive took the world by storm when it was intro­duced in Paris in 1872. It quickly became so pop­u­lar that it was nick­named “white gold”.

About a cen­tury later, a young Amer­i­can named Richard Collins, focused on becom­ing a spe­cialty farmer, made his own dis­cov­ery of endive while work­ing in the kitchen at a Cal­i­for­nia /​French eatery called Restau­rant La Salle. The owner, prepar­ing braised endives, told the wide-​eyed youth that he should con­sider grow­ing endives as he had just paid four dol­lars a pound for them! Fas­ci­nated by the prospect of pro­duc­ing this ele­gant veg­etable, Rich bought some seeds and planted them in the fam­ily veg­etable garden.

By 1983, Rich had begun com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion of locally grown endive in Vacav­ille, launch­ing Rebel Farms and a new tra­di­tion, rich in his­tory of this ele­gant veg­etable. Rebel Farms was later renamed Cal­i­for­nia Endive Farms and it remains the largest Amer­i­can producer.

A lead­ing inno­va­tor in refin­ing the com­plex process of grow­ing the high­est qual­ity Cal­i­for­nia endive (both red and white), Cal­i­for­nia Endive Farms is ded­i­cated to con­sis­tent pro­duc­tion of the high­est qual­ity endive in the marketplace.

Tom Schultz is a third gen­er­a­tion fam­ily farmer in Marysville, Cal­i­for­nia. Under his direct man­age­ment, Chase National Kiwi Farms oper­ates on approx­i­mately 155 acres and pro­duces Cal­i­for­nia Cer­ti­fied Organic kiwifruit. They also farm an addi­tional 20 acres of con­ven­tional grown kiwifruit. The com­pany also packs kiwifruit for 5 out­side kiwifruit grow­ers & is a major exporter of Cal­i­for­nia kiwifruit to Japan.

After grad­u­at­ing from Chico State Uni­ver­sity in 1973, Tom then began in the Cal­i­for­nia kiwifruit indus­try, stay­ing in the Chico area. He has been ded­i­cated and per­son­ally involved in kiwifruit nurs­ery, grow­ing, pack­ing, cold stor­age and export seg­ments of busi­ness, full time, since 1973.

As a proud grad­u­ate of Class 14 of the Cal­i­for­nia Ag Lead­er­ship Pro­gram, Tom con­tin­ues with his lead­er­ship role in the Kiwifruit indus­try. Cur­rently, he serves on the Kiwifruit Mar­ket­ing Order Board and is past Pres­i­dent of the Kiwifruit Grow­ers Asso­ci­a­tion and past Chair­man of the Cal­i­for­nia Kiwifruit Commission.

Tom rep­re­sented the Cal­i­for­nia kiwifruit indus­try at the first Inter­na­tional Kiwifruit Orga­ni­za­tion meet­ing in Paris, France and has rep­re­sented Cal­i­for­nia at other Inter­na­tional meet­ings in Hong Kong, South Korea, Chile, Italy and France. His trav­els to most of the worlds’ major kiwifruit pro­duc­ing coun­tries (New Zealand, Chile, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, South Korea) allows him to study their kiwifruit grow­ing prac­tices.

Chin Farms is the grow­ing oper­a­tion of Wong Pota­toes, Inc., a fam­ily owned busi­ness which has been grow­ing, pack­ing, and ship­ping pota­toes in the United States since 1930. Their pota­toes are shipped through­out the United States and the Pacific Rim coun­tries. Each year, Chin Farms grows and ships over 70 mil­lion pounds of the world’s favorite vegetable!

The own­ers are Dee Dee and Daniel Chin, third gen­er­a­tion potato farm­ers in the Kla­math Basin. The Kla­math Basin is ideal for grow­ing qual­ity prod­ucts because of its high ele­va­tion (4,100 ft.) and short grow­ing sea­son (115 days).

Their pota­toes include red, yel­low, rus­set, and spe­cialty pota­toes along with a full line of organ­i­cally grown pota­toes. Chin Farms grows about 2,400 acres of con­ven­tional pota­toes, wheat, alfalfa hay, and dehy­drated onions, and their organic divi­sion, Chin Fam­ily Farms Organic, LLC, grows about 2,500 acres of organic pota­toes, wheat, and alfalfa hay.

A Rich Tra­di­tion in Gar­lic~ In the early 1890′s, Ole Christo­pher left Den­mark for the long jour­ney to Amer­ica. Like many immi­grants, Ole labored long and hard to make his dreams a real­ity, even­tu­ally pur­chas­ing a tract of land ideal for plant­ing an orchard. For the next 20 years, the Christo­pher fam­ily con­tin­ued to add to their hold­ings, until they became one of the largest grow­ers of prunes in the Santa Clara Val­ley. Don Christo­pher, Ole’s grand­son, grew up on that orig­i­nal ranch, work­ing side by side with his father in the orchards. Then, in 1956, Don set out to cre­ate a ranch of his own.

Buy­ing a plot of land in Gilroy – just ten miles south of where he was raised – Don and his brother Art decided to try their luck with a new kind of crop: Gar­lic. Exper­i­ment­ing with Euro­pean vari­eties allowed them to carve out a unique niche in the world of Santa Clara Val­ley pro­duce.

Over time, Don turned more of his hold­ings to gar­lic cul­ti­va­tion – in par­tic­u­lar, French & Ital­ian vari­eties, which pro­duce big­ger & more fla­vor­ful bulbs. Along the way he co-​founded the Gilroy Gar­lic Fes­ti­val, an annual event that has trans­formed Gilroy into the “Gar­lic Cap­i­tal of the World”.

Ole’s great grand­son, Bill, is at the helm of Christo­pher Ranch, as a stew­ard with the same pur­pose & ded­i­ca­tion to qual­ity that’s been the hall­mark of the fam­ily busi­ness for over 50 years. Tend­ing heir­loom seed stock, Bill and his son Ken are focused on the next 50 years of fam­ily farm­ing in the Santa Clara Valley

Coke Farm has been pro­duc­ing organ­i­cally grown fruits and veg­eta­bles for over thirty years. In 1981, founder Dale Coke was prompted by a doubt­ing con­ven­tional farmer, who spec­u­lated that straw­ber­ries could not be grown organ­i­cally. Dale planted his first straw­ber­ries in August of 1981 on the home ranch near Aro­mas, Cal­i­for­nia. The plants pro­duced suc­cess­fully and a local nat­ural foods store became the first Coke Farm customer.

Dale started plant­ing more crops and joined the Santa Cruz chap­ter of C.C.O.F. (Cal­i­for­nia Cer­ti­fied Organic Farm­ers). By 1990, Coke Farm had grown to a 200+ acre farm, har­vest­ing over fifty crop vari­eties each year and ship­ping daily out of a cooler on site in San Juan Bautista.

Today, Coke Farm con­tin­ues to pro­vide its cus­tomers with organic, spe­cialty, top qual­ity, sea­sonal fruits and veg­eta­bles year-​round. In addi­tion to grow­ing and ship­ping their own pro­duce, Coke Farm cools, stores, and ships for sev­eral local organic farms.

In 1919 Marin Caratan selected the fer­tile ground of the San Joaquin Val­ley not only as home, but also as the place where he would pur­sue his life­long dream – the growth and prop­a­ga­tion of table grapes. From the day he arrived in Kern County, his dream began to grow into the legacy now known as Columbine Vine­yards.

Columbine grapes have been pro­duced exclu­sively by the Caratan fam­ily for three gen­er­a­tions. Today, Chris and Mar­tin Caratan, Marin’s grand­sons, over­see the com­pany oper­a­tions. To merit the Columbine label, all grape vari­eties are care­fully hand — selected from vines of vary­ing ages at the pre­cise peak of their matu­rity. All Columbine grapevines are sus­tained by water-​conserving drip irri­ga­tion. The grapes are hand-​picked and hand-​packed by work­ers that return for the har­vest year after year. These work­ers are trained to select the sweet­est and most fla­vor­ful berries their vines pro­duce. They take pride in han­dling the fruit with care from pick­ing to ship­ping to mar­ket in refrig­er­ated con­tain­ers.

Columbine Vine­yards pro­duces 11 vari­eties of pre­mium table grapes and has 3 exclu­sive vari­eties: Black Globe, Hol­i­day Seed­less and Majes­tic. Among the incom­pa­ra­ble sweet table grapes grown in California’s south­ern San Joaquin Val­ley, no label is more respected than Columbine. Enjoy Cal­i­for­nia Grapes grown by Cal­i­for­nia Grape farmers!

As a boy grow­ing up on his par­ents’ farm, Farmer Ken Chung learned that only indi­vid­u­al­ized & cus­tomized care, nur­tur­ing and cul­ti­va­tion can pro­duce the high qual­ity, beau­ti­ful and lux­u­ri­ous orchids he came to love so much.

He trans­ferred that knowl­edge to his orchid farm and today, that is why Cyma Orchids farm­ers put their heart and soul into each and every plant on their 10.3 acre, fam­ily owned and oper­ated farm located in sunny Oxnard, Cal­i­for­nia. Each Cyma Orchids plant, whether it’s an orchid, suc­cu­lent, lucky bam­boo or planter is indi­vid­u­ally cared for and nur­tured to ensure that it will become beau­ti­ful, ele­gant, strong and pro­vide long-​lasting enjoyment.

Dalena Farms Inc. is a fam­ily owned and oper­ated busi­ness located in the heart of California’s sunny and boun­ti­ful Cen­tral Val­ley. Their prime farm­land is ide­ally suited for grow­ing excep­tional onions. Every­day, Joe Dalena and three gen­er­a­tions of his fam­ily work together to pro­duce the high­est qual­ity yel­low, red, white, and sweet onions available.

The Dalena family’s com­mit­ment is reflected in all aspects of their oper­a­tion. All of their onions are grown by them with per­sonal atten­tion on a daily basis. They start by select­ing pre­mium onion vari­eties and plant them through­out the fall and into the spring. This allows them to har­vest fresh onions every day. They hand har­vest each onion and take spe­cial care in the treat­ment of the onions from the field to their state-​of-​the-​art pack­ing and ship­ping facility.

Fol­low­ing strict safety guide­lines, Dalena Farms ensures that their onions are pes­ti­cide residue free and that their fields are Nutri­Clean Cer­ti­fied by Sci­en­tific Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Sys­tems. They are par­tic­i­pants in AIB Inter­na­tional Food Safety Audits and have main­tained a Supe­rior rat­ing. Addi­tion­ally, they have a trace recall pro­gram that allows them to mon­i­tor their prod­uct from the field all the way to the customer.

Dear­dorff Fam­ily Farms pays homage to their her­itage by engag­ing in sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices that use fewer chem­i­cals, pro­tect the envi­ron­ment and yield health­ier, better-​tasting pro­duce for cus­tomers. Four gen­er­a­tions of farm­ing exper­tise have made them an author­ity on deliv­er­ing pro­duce to retail, food­ser­vice and whole­sale clients around the world. The farm is oper­ated by Scott Dear­dorff and Tom Dear­dorff II from Ven­tura County, California.

Known for toma­toes, cel­ery, red and green cab­bage, mixed leafy let­tuces and now organ­i­cally grown cel­ery and roma toma­toes, Dear­dorff Fam­ily Farms began grow­ing cer­ti­fied organic crops in 2005. Numer­ous envi­ron­men­tal and social com­po­nents high­light the many facets of their farm­ing oper­a­tion. Inno­va­tors in farm­ing, pack­ag­ing and cool­ing, Dear­dorff is syn­ony­mous with quality!

Greek immi­grant broth­ers Nicholas, Charles and William Decas started the com­pany in 1934. Today, in their eighth decade, Decas is still a fam­ily owned busi­ness, sell­ing cran­berry prod­ucts around the world.

They’ve built their rep­u­ta­tion as The Cran­berry Ingre­di­ent Experts. The Decas fam­ily has exper­tise in every aspect of cran­berry grow­ing, pro­cess­ing and mar­ket­ing. With over 450 acres of cran­berry bogs in Mass­a­chu­setts and con­tract­ing with over 150 inde­pen­dent grow­ers through­out the US and Canada, Decas is the sec­ond largest cran­berry com­pany in the world.

Over 60 mil­lion pounds of cran­ber­ries are now processed and sold by Decas in over 35 coun­tries world­wide. Decas’ state of the art pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties in Carver, MA, pro­duce a full line of cran­berry prod­ucts, includ­ing: cran­berry con­cen­trate, sweet­ened dried cran­ber­ries, and fresh whole cranberries.

DePalma Farms rep­re­sents three gen­er­a­tions of farm­ing in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, since 1951. Pat DePalma and his par­ents emi­grated to the United States from Bitritto-​Bart, Italy in 1947.

In search of the most fer­tile soil, the DePalma fam­ily moved to the fer­tile San Joaquin Val­ley in Cal­i­for­nia. They pur­chased 23 acres in Escalon to grow peaches and grapes there.

Today, the DePalma fam­ily farms land from Modesto to Lodi and dis­trib­utes its fine pro­duce through­out the United States and Canada. In addi­tion to peaches and wine and table grapes, they also farm cher­ries, olives, nec­tarines, corn, almonds, wal­nuts, pis­ta­chios and persimmons.

They can be found at var­i­ous Farmer’s Mar­kets in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia sell­ing their farm to table fresh products.

Since 1938, the Nel­son fam­ily has been pro­duc­ing supe­rior qual­ity pota­toes from North­west­ern Wash­ing­ton. The build­ing blocks on which the com­pany was founded still stand today with a com­mit­ment to “qual­ity, con­sis­tency and service”.

The late founder, Nor­man W. Nel­son (1916−1984) began farm­ing in his early twen­ties. He started grow­ing pota­toes early in his farm­ing career in the Skagit River Val­ley (one of the most fer­tile grow­ing areas in the world with soils high in organic mat­ter and a marine cli­mate con­ducive to grow­ing a wide vari­ety of crops).

In the begin­ning, his pota­toes were graded and packed by another pack­ing shed in the near vicin­ity. Then in the mid­dle 1940’s, at the site of the present ware­house, Norm Nel­son acquired an old build­ing and con­verted it to a pack­ing shed to han­dle his own prod­uct. At that time, the Double-​N label was born.

Today, this 3rd gen­er­a­tion fam­ily farm grows, packs and ships under the Double-​N (Pre­mium US #1), Golden Seal (Value US #1) and Pedi­gree (US #2) labels. They proudly offer pre­mium qual­ity & vari­ety Red, White, Yel­low and Pur­ple potatoes.

Fam­ily owned and oper­ated for over 100 years, Driscoll’s is a ship­ping and mar­ket­ing busi­ness that is pas­sion­ate about grow­ing pre­mium fresh berries. Respected world­wide, Driscoll’s is one of the largest grow­ers of Cal­i­for­nia straw­ber­ries, rasp­ber­ries, blue­ber­ries, black­ber­ries and organic berries.

Joseph “Ed” Reiter and R.O. Driscoll began grow­ing the first Pajaro Val­ley Sweet Briar straw­ber­ries back in 1904! The fam­ily tra­di­tion con­tin­ues as Driscoll’s berries are grown on fam­ily farms in some of the world’s pre­miere grow­ing regions. These farm­ers share a com­mit­ment to grow­ing the world’s best berries and to pro­tect­ing their fam­ily land to hand down to future gen­er­a­tions.

Before the berries are sent to the inde­pen­dent fam­ily farms, Driscoll’s research and devel­op­ment teams use nat­ural breed­ing meth­ods to cre­ate patented vari­eties. All of their berries are sweet, juicy and nat­u­rally whole­some. Packed with antiox­i­dants, fiber and vit­a­mins, they’re a healthy treat for any time of the day. Driscoll’s food safety pro­gram ensures the whole­some­ness of the berries and the safety of their con­sumers, employ­ees, and inde­pen­dent farm­ers through­out the entire process.

Since the early 80’s, Jim & Deb­o­rah Durst have been grow­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing some of the best tast­ing organic pro­duce under the brand name “Hun­gry Hol­low” and “Durst Organic Grow­ers.” Durst Organic Grow­ers, Inc., strongly believes in farm­ing tech­niques that build soil fer­til­ity while bal­anc­ing wildlife and insect ecol­ogy. They do this by plant­ing cover crops, proper crop rota­tion and soil amend­ments. The farm prac­tices are based on the maxim “Feed the soil and the soil will feed the plants.”

Located in an area of Cal­i­for­nia called “Hun­gry Hol­low” at the mouth of the Capay Val­ley in Yolo County, this fourth gen­er­a­tion farm ben­e­fits from a unique micro­cli­mate and soils that allow them to grow deli­cious tast­ing aspara­gus, mel­ons, water­mel­ons, cher­ries, heir­loom toma­toes, pep­pers, and win­ter squash. All of these crops are picked in the cool morn­ing hours and packed and refrig­er­ated imme­di­ately. This allows Durst Organic Grow­ers, Inc. to bring their prod­ucts to your table in a “vine ripe” con­di­tion that pro­vides superb flavor.

Farm­ing­ton Fresh is the only fruit pack­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing plant in the nation that sits next to an air­port. They are located in Stock­ton, Cal­i­for­nia, in the heart of the Cen­tral Val­ley, amidst the most fer­tile Agri­cul­ture Land in the World. With great pio­neer­ing spirit the grower part­ners have been able to grow with vol­ume and diver­sity of prod­uct offering.

Their grower ros­ter has expanded to include some of the most well regarded tree fruit farm­ers in the golden state. Since 1995, they have been oper­at­ing one of the most state-​of-​the-​art apple pack­ing facil­i­ties in the west. The equip­ment is con­stantly being updated and improved as the fast paced pro­duce indus­try dic­tates. With the addi­tion of their Slice and Dice Room in 1997, they became inno­va­tors in Fresh Sliced Apple products.

Today, they have made fur­ther inno­va­tions in fresh snack­ing prod­ucts. Their ready-​to-​eat BFFs (Bites of Fresh Fruits) are indi­vid­u­ally packed fruits, includ­ing: ripe pears, sweet oranges, firm grapes and crunchy apples. Other Farm­ing­ton Fresh prod­uct lines are: Modi Apples, Just Enough pota­toes, Home Grown onions, and Locally Grown brand packs.

Fau­rot Ranch is a small family-​owned ranch located in Wat­sonville, Cal­i­for­nia. They spe­cial­ize in baby veg­eta­bles, let­tuces, and greens and work dili­gently all year to main­tain fresh, sat­is­fy­ing prod­uct. They per­form as a fam­ily of grow­ers, pack­ers, and ship­pers to be one of the best spe­cialty pro­duce sup­pli­ers in the entire Mon­terey Bay area. Rod Fau­rot and Arturo Sanchez co-​own and man­age the farm.

The prop­erty was orig­i­nally pur­chased by Rod’s mother in 1948. The farm­ing oper­a­tions began in 1984 with Arturo and just 2 acres of rasp­ber­ries. Today, Fau­rot Ranch farms about 90 acres with over 30 vari­eties of spe­cialty veg­eta­bles. Rod and Arturo are proud that they have run a suc­cess­ful busi­ness for so many years, pro­vid­ing qual­ity prod­ucts to cus­tomers all over the world.

Full Belly Farm is a 400-​acre cer­ti­fied organic farm located in the beau­ti­ful Capay Val­ley of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, an hour north­west of Sacra­mento. Full Belly has been farmed using organic prac­tices since 1985 and is cer­ti­fied by Cal­i­for­nia Cer­ti­fied Organic Farm­ers. The farm own­ers are Andrew Brait, Paul Muller, Judith Red­mond, and Dru Rivers.

With help from about 100+ val­ued employ­ees, the farm pro­duces an amaz­ing diver­sity of veg­eta­bles, herbs, nuts, flow­ers, and fruits year-​round. The farm also has a flock of chick­ens, a herd of sheep, and sev­eral milk­ing cows.

Full Belly’s sys­tem includes: grow­ing and mar­ket­ing over 80 dif­fer­ent crops; pro­vid­ing year-​round employ­ment for farm labor; using cover crops that fix nitro­gen and pro­vide organic mat­ter for the soil; devel­op­ing inno­v­a­tive mar­ket­ing strate­gies; and plant­ing habi­tat areas for ben­e­fi­cial insects and wildlife. This set of strate­gies allows the farm to inte­grate farm pro­duc­tion with longer-​term envi­ron­men­tal goals. This is Sus­tain­able Farm­ing at its best!

Emilio Ghig­geri planted the first sweet corn in Brent­wood in the 1940’s when the area was known pri­mar­ily for its pro­duc­tion of let­tuce, apri­cots, and mel­ons. The farm became G&S (Ghig­geri and Stonebarger) Farms in the 1980’s when Glenn Stonebarger, who is a 3rd year-​generation Brent­wood farmer, mar­ried Emilio’s daugh­ter, Jean­nie. Today, Brent­wood is famous for its sweet corn pro­duc­tion, par­tic­u­larly a vari­ety called Brent­wood Dia­monds, which G&S Farms was the first to grow in the 1990’s.

The farm­ing oper­a­tion con­tin­ues today under the man­age­ment of Glenn, with the help of his nephew, Joseph Ghig­geri, and two sons, Paul and Michael. G&S Farms is one of the few remain­ing farms in Brent­wood. As a fam­ily, G&S Farms is proud to be farm­ing all non-​GMO pro­duce. G&S Farm’s sta­ple prod­ucts con­sist of their Brent­wood Dia­mond Sweet Corn, as well as their Brent­wood Cher­ries. Among some of their other favorite crops to grow are onions, cher­ries, apples, and fresh mar­ket beans such as Blue Lake, French, Yel­low Wax, and Romano.

Golden Bear Ranches was founded in 2007 as a divi­sion of J.L. Gib­son Inc. by its pres­i­dent and founder, John Gib­son, a 6th gen­er­a­tion North­ern Cal­i­forn­ian. This well-​respected com­pany grows 5 vari­eties of sweet cher­ries and over 50 vari­eties of heir­loom toma­toes at its three Lodi area ranches. They’re proud to pro­duce some of North­ern California’s best sweet cher­ries and heir­loom toma­toes; the demand for Golden Bear heir­loom toma­toes has led to the plant­ing of 60,000 plants!

Golden Bear Ranches was estab­lished as a trib­ute to Gibson’s great grand­mother, Elvezia Sco­lari Gib­son, who farmed years ago with her hus­band in the Lin­den area . After the hard work and suc­cess expe­ri­enced by Golden Bear Ranches, she would no doubt be proud.

The Grimm broth­ers began nur­tur­ing their fam­ily busi­ness in the fer­tile soil of Kern County more than 3 decades ago. Today, their roots run deep. Grimmway Farms has grown to become the largest grower, pro­ducer and ship­per of car­rots in the world; but the fam­ily still insists on walk­ing the fields, vis­it­ing the pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties and per­form­ing their own brand of qual­ity assur­ance — every sin­gle day. In 1968 when Rod and Bob Grimm set up their first road­side pro­duce stand, the broth­ers made a promise: always take care of the customer.

Decades later, that promise has never been bro­ken. Grimmway Farms’ ded­i­ca­tion to con­sis­tent qual­ity and depend­able ser­vice has made them the global leader in their industry.

Acknowl­edg­ing and respond­ing to the issues impor­tant to their cus­tomers is impor­tant to them. To address the grow­ing con­sumer demand for pesticide-​free fruits and veg­eta­bles, Grimmway Farms is con­tin­u­ously devel­op­ing new avenues of opportunity.

In 2001, they acquired Cal-​Organics, a pio­neer organic pro­duce com­pany pro­vid­ing more than 75 organic prod­uct offerings.

Hitch­cock Farms is a rec­og­nized leader among Cal­i­for­nia pro­duce com­pa­nies. Head­quar­tered in the heart of the Salad Bowl of the World with the cool waters of the Mon­terey Bay as their back­drop. Their farms are sea­son­ally located in the fer­tile Sali­nas Val­ley in the spring, sum­mer and fall, then shift to the Impe­r­ial Val­ley of South­east­ern Cal­i­for­nia dur­ing the win­ter months.

In the 1880’s, the Hitch­cock and Panziera fam­i­lies had a vision of grow­ing and pack­ing the high­est qual­ity veg­eta­bles for the pro­duce indus­try. Since 1980. Hitch­cock Farms has engaged and part­nered with grow­ers that carry that same vision and fam­ily her­itage. Hitch­cock Farms has been on the cut­ting edge of prod­ucts, inno­va­tion and sustainability.

Founded by Larry Jacobs and San­dra Belin in 1980 as a small organic fam­ily farm, Jacobs Farm remains com­mit­ted to ben­e­fit­ting peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment for gen­er­a­tions to come. Their mis­sion is to grow great tast­ing, healthy food in a socially and envi­ron­men­tally respon­si­ble manner.

They strive for a sus­tain­able approach to agri­cul­ture, using sound busi­ness prac­tices and organic farm­ing meth­ods. With their unwa­ver­ing vision geared towards social change, they are proud to have helped many indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties prosper.

Over sixty vari­eties of herbs and edi­ble flow­ers grace their north­ern Cal­i­for­nia coastal farm­lands. The farm has pio­neered organic grow­ing prac­tices and never used toxic, per­sis­tent pes­ti­cides or herbicides.

Founders Jacobs and Belin are deeply com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able, organic grow­ing prac­tices. In 2009, Jacobs and Belin received the Eco­log­i­cal Farm­ing Association’s (Eco-​Farm) “Stew­ards of Sus­tain­able Agri­cul­ture” or “Sustie” award for their life­time achieve­ments in sus­tain­able agriculture.

Founded in 2005, Jayleaf is a family-​run pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion busi­ness, sup­ply­ing cer­ti­fied organic salad mixes and greens to the whole­sale and food­ser­vice sec­tor. The fam­ily behind Jayleaf has more than 25 years’ expe­ri­ence in the indus­try although Jayleaf is still a young business.

As a ten year old boy, Jose Ornelas, now the owner of Jayleaf, rapidly learned the tricks of the trade. He grew up in the busi­ness and knows the indus­try by heart. By build­ing a nice and respect­ful work­place, the close com­mu­nity of Jayleaf was founded. The grass root begin­nings remain an essen­tial ele­ment of the Jayleaf cul­ture today. “We do not hold back on going the extra mile. The hard work­ing men­tal­ity, from top to bot­tom, is ever-​present,” says Henry Catalán, Chief Oper­a­tions Offi­cer at Jayleaf.

Today, Jayleaf pro­duces and processes around 5,000,000 lbs. (2,268,000 kg.) of spring mix, spinach, arugula, kale, endive and radic­chio a year.

Jeff Boldt and his fam­ily proudly grow Sum­meripe peaches, plums and nec­tarines. He and his fam­ily are one of a spe­cial group of grow­ers for Moun­tain View Fruit Sales and the Sum­mer­ripe fruit pro­gram.

Jeff’s story of farm­ing actu­ally starts over 100 years ago. In 1907, Jeff’s fam­ily started farm­ing the same ground they farm today. Jeff’s wife, Brenda, grew up on the land her fam­ily pur­chased in the early 1900’s. They started with about 25 acres of tree fruit, today they farm over 250 acres of peaches, plums and nec­tarines. Jeff appre­ci­ates farm­ing because it’s a lifestyle and pro­fes­sion he can do along­side his fam­ily. He also enjoyed the fact, he could attend his daugh­ters sport­ing events, and could be there while they grew up.

Jeff loves walk­ing his fields dur­ing bloom, and loves the smell of fruit dur­ing har­vest. His favorite fruit is nec­tarines, and his favorite vari­eties are Honey Blaze and Spring Bright. He hopes that you can see, feel, and taste the pas­sion he and his fam­ily put into their farm­ing. They have spent many years per­fect­ing what they do today. That cul­mi­nates in Cal­i­for­nia grown, Sum­meripe fresh stone fruit.

Jacobs, Mal­colm & Burtt (JMB) has been in busi­ness for more than 125 years. The com­pany started out sell­ing pro­duce whole­sale in the Pro­duce Mar­kets of San Fran­cisco. Leo Rolan­delli pur­chased JMB in 1963 and has sold pro­duce for the past 50 years. Dur­ing the 70’s Leo started work­ing with aspara­gus grow­ers to develop the aspara­gus indus­try. Since then, aspara­gus has become the major­ity of JMB’s business.

In 2012, JMB sold its whole­sale pro­duce busi­ness in the San Fran­cisco Pro­duce Mar­ket to con­cen­trate on its bro­ker­age busi­ness. It cur­rently sells aspara­gus, mel­ons, and pome­gran­ates.

JMB and the suc­cess of its grow­ers has been built on a part­ner­ship based on what each is good at: the grower pro­duc­ing a qual­ity crop and JMB sell­ing at a price that pro­vides the most money back to the grower. JMB pro­vides grow­ers with funds to enable them to develop and plant fields, build pack­ing sheds and cold stor­age facil­i­ties and buy equip­ment. By part­ner­ing with grow­ers, instead of grow­ing, JMB is able to return money back to the local econ­omy of the grower.

John­ston Farms is a fourth gen­er­a­tion fam­ily farm, founded shortly after World War II by John C. John­ston when he moved his fam­ily from Ore­gon to Bak­ers­field to grow pota­toes in the Edi­son area of Kern County, California.

In 1963, he added Cit­rus fruits to the farm, start­ing with Navel oranges and then Sat­suma Man­darins in the 1970’s. Red Grape­fruit were added in the 1980’s.

Enjoy their high qual­ity prod­ucts under these great labels: Blue Jay, Top Jay, Vic­tor, Rene­gade & Comanche.

King Fresh Pro­duce traces its roots to 1933, when a 17 year old Dee Wil­son left Okla­homa in search of a bet­ter life for his fam­ily in Cal­i­for­nia. After find­ing steady work, Dee was able to buy land in Shafter, Cal­i­for­nia. Three gen­er­a­tions later, Dee Wil­son would remain proud of his fam­ily that retains his unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to hard work and hon­esty.

The King Fresh farm­ing inter­ests in the San Joaquin Val­ley of Cen­tral Cal­i­for­nia rep­re­sent over 3,000 acres of Table Grape Vine­yards, Cherry Orchards and Cit­rus Groves. Their farms are located in the South­ern and Cen­tral San Joaquin Val­ley of Cal­i­for­nia, with a con­cen­tra­tion of prop­erty near the Kings River that runs through the small farm­ing town of Kings­burg.

King Fresh Pro­duce is the mar­ket­ing arm of Wil­son Farms, and now in its third gen­er­a­tion of Wilsons spear­head­ing the com­pany. Wil­son Farms was founded by Keith’s father, Woodrow Wil­son, fol­low­ing in the farm­ing tra­di­tion of Keith’s grand­fa­ther, Dee. Keith him­self heads King Fresh, where his chil­dren are now begin­ning to break into the fam­ily busi­ness.

King Fresh, grown and packed with pride.

Over the past two decades, Kings­burg Orchards has emerged as one of the pre­mier grow­ers, ship­pers and pack­ers in California’s Cen­tral Val­ley.

Apples and stone fruit are the cor­ner­stone of their busi­ness. They are an indus­try leader in the pro­duc­tion of over 200 vari­eties of fruits, includ­ing Asian Apple Pears, White Flesh Peaches, White Flesh Nec­tarines & patented “DINOSAUR BRAND®” Plu­ots. They pride them­selves on their abil­ity to adapt to cus­tomer needs and respond to mar­ket trends.

Kings­burg Orchards is a 5th gen­er­a­tion, fam­ily owned and oper­ated com­pany. With over 7500 acres in pro­duc­tion, they han­dle approx­i­mately 7 mil­lion cases of Cal­i­for­nia fresh fruit offered from May until Feb­ru­ary.

This sum­mer, enjoy tasty Plu­ots with names like Fla­vor Grenade, Trop­i­cal Treat or Dinosaur Egg from Kings­burg Orchards!

A young Stan­ford grad­u­ate seek­ing employ­ment in Sali­nas, H.W. “Cy” Mann began his career trim­ming fruit and let­tuce and load­ing grain onto box­cars for 40¢ an hour in the late 1930s. As a result of his hard work and ded­i­ca­tion, he became fore­man of a pro­duce shed. It was 1939 when he opened a fresh car­rot pack­ing oper­a­tion called, H.W. Mann. Shortly there­after, Mr. Mann found his claim to fame in the fresh veg­etable indus­try, namely broc­coli. It was in those early days that Mr. Mann built a rep­u­ta­tion for hon­esty and integrity — one that remains with the com­pany today.

In 1976, Bill Ram­sey and Don Nucci joined Mr. Mann as part­ners in the com­pany. Today, the Nucci & Ram­sey fam­i­lies lead the firm which now spans three gen­er­a­tions. Mann Pack­ing is a major­ity women-​owned and oper­ated busi­ness, and one of the country’s lead­ing sup­pli­ers of fresh veg­eta­bles, includ­ing washed and ready to use fresh-​cut veg­gies, snack packs and party trays, and washed and trimmed let­tuce prod­ucts for food­ser­vice. They are best known for their pro­pri­etary Broc­col­ini® prod­uct and award-​winning String­less Sugar Snap Peas.

Bob Steinacher bought the land for May­wood Farms in 1981, and he has come a long way since then. In 1983, he hand­picked, packed, and deliv­ered his first small har­vest of figs him­self; in 1990, the first twenty-​five acres were cer­ti­fied organic and he began to move all the acreage to organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as demand for organic figs increased annually.

One of only a few cer­ti­fied organic packer farms in the state, May­wood Farms grows five vari­eties (Mis­sion, Adri­atic, Brown Turkey, Kadota, & Excel) of figs that they pick, sort, pack, and ship.

The Cal­i­for­nia Fig Advi­sory Board iden­ti­fies 9,300 fig-​producing acres in the state. Bob Steinacher fig­ures that 172 of those acres are under his care at May­wood Farms in Corn­ing, Cal­i­for­nia. His is a “mid-​sized” farm.

May­wood Farms’ entire oper­a­tion is located in one site. This includes the orchard, pack­ing shed, cooler, and Bob and Karen’s home. This set up allows them to start cool­ing the figs within 20 min­utes of pick­ing, to care­fully mon­i­tor pro­duc­tion, and to adjust their vol­ume accord­ing to sales. As a result, the figs are shipped imme­di­ately after being fully cooled.

McC­a­hon Flo­ral is a third gen­er­a­tion nurs­ery busi­ness that grows plants for indoor and out­door enjoy­ment in green­houses and fields on 30 acres in Wat­sonville. Lau­rie and Andy McC­a­hon own and oper­ate the nurs­ery with the help of all six of their chil­dren and 50 employees.

The nurs­ery was founded in 1947 by Andy McCahon’s grand­par­ents, who emi­grated from North­ern Ire­land in search of job oppor­tu­ni­ties. After arriv­ing at Ellis Island, Andy’s grand­fa­ther fol­lowed his sis­ter to San Fran­cisco. There he found a job at a green­house and met his future wife. The rest is history!

“Hav­ing our chil­dren help us at the farm­ers mar­kets has been a great expe­ri­ence for our fam­ily. The kids have gained a healthy work ethic, and learned about run­ning a busi­ness,” said Lau­rie. It’s also just won­der­ful to have our chil­dren with us as much as pos­si­ble,” she added.

“What we love about this busi­ness is that our plants bring hap­pi­ness to oth­ers — it’s as sim­ple as that! We have met many nice peo­ple at the farm­ers mar­kets and made new friends there too,” exclaimed Laurie

Nat­ural Trad­ing Company’s beau­ti­ful 40 acre farm is located in New­cas­tle, Cal­i­for­nia. Family-​owned and oper­ated, they are a cer­ti­fied organic farm and CSA in New­cas­tle, CA. They grow their pro­duce using tech­niques that main­tain and replen­ish the soil for the ben­e­fit of cur­rent and future generations

The Nat­ural Trad­ing Com­pany grows a diverse selec­tion of fruits and veg­eta­bles, includ­ing 5 dif­fer­ent vari­eties of kale, 30 vari­eties of toma­toes, and per­sim­mons on their 50+ year old trees. Their green­house sup­ports the com­mu­nity with wheat­grass, pea shoots, and sun­flower greens.

Dan and Bar­bara O’Connell have been farm­ing for 30+ years along the scenic Sacra­mento River in Colusa, California.

O’Connell Ranch is a fam­ily farm­ing and cat­tle ranch oper­a­tion that proudly grows an assort­ment of beau­ti­ful, sea­sonal, locally grown, high qual­ity fruits includ­ing: Fuyu Per­sim­mons, Asian Pears, Yel­low and White Peaches, Yel­low and White Nec­tarines, Plu­ots and Euro­pean Pear vari­eties (includ­ing Taylor’s Gold).

Dan and Bar­bara are very “hands on” in all aspects of the farm­ing oper­a­tion, offer­ing farm fresh, healthy fruits. The ranch fea­tures a “FRESH” pro­duce stand, “ Barb’s Pro­duce” where pre-​school classes, 4-​H Clubs and adult groups enjoy learn­ing the impor­tant lessons of a real work­ing fam­ily ranch.

Since 1924, Ocean Mist Farms has pro­vided mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions of cus­tomers with the fresh­est Arti­chokes and veg­eta­bles, and is still fam­ily owned.

Called the Cal­i­for­nia Arti­choke & Veg­etable Grow­ers Cor­po­ra­tion until 1995, Ocean Mist Farms is head­quar­tered in Cas­tro­ville, Cal­i­for­nia — “The Arti­choke Capi­tol of the World” and home of the annual Cas­tro­ville Arti­choke Festival.

Today Ocean Mist Farms is the largest grower of fresh arti­chokes in the coun­try as well as 30 other fresh veg­eta­bles. An organic line of fresh veg­eta­bles, Ocean Mist Organic, was intro­duced in 2015.

Ocean Mist arti­chokes are grown year-​round in three ideal Arti­choke grow­ing areas of Cal­i­for­nia: Cas­tro­ville, Oxnard and Coachella. The full line of Ocean Mist pre­mium, fresh veg­eta­bles are also grown year-​round in mul­ti­ple grow­ing regions with the most fer­tile ground and pro­duc­tive micro­cli­mates through­out Cal­i­for­nia, Ari­zona and in Mexico.

In 1948, just after WWII ended, Char­lie Sakamoto started grow­ing berries on five acres. Since then, the farm has grown to 30 acres of straw­ber­ries along with 150 acres of mixed veg­eta­bles. Today, Charles Okui, his grand­son, man­ages the farm and grows straw­ber­ries with his sis­ter, Joan Okui. As third gen­er­a­tion, Japanese-​American farm­ers, they are con­tin­u­ing a tra­di­tion of rais­ing pre­mium tast­ing straw­ber­ries that was car­ried out by many Japan­ese farm­ers and their fam­i­lies who grew and sold the crop.

Charles believes that the micro cli­mate & coastal fog of Grover Beach, Cal­i­for­nia (San Luis Obispo County) con­tribute to the sweet­ness of his Albion vari­ety berries. The prac­tice of keep­ing the fruit on the vine as long as pos­si­ble, for ripeness, makes for great tast­ing, full fla­vor fruit.

Charles says that straw­ber­ries are more fun and excit­ing to grow than mixed veg­eta­bles and that in the 25+ years that he has been grow­ing straw­ber­ries; no two years are ever the same. He also says his lit­tle son Jack may be the 4 th gen­er­a­tion Okui berry farmer in the future!

Orchard View Cher­ries are some of the world’s most sought after fresh fruit. Their fresh cher­ries are enjoyed around the globe.

Wal­ter Bai­ley and Mabel Bai­ley estab­lished Orchard View Farms in 1923. The ini­tial busi­ness base was pro­cess­ing cher­ries (Maraschino Cher­ries). Accord­ing to records kept by Grandpa, the farm pro­duced 18 tons of white cher­ries and six tons of black cher­ries dur­ing its first sea­son.

Walter’s son, Don and his wife Edwina, joined the busi­ness prior to 1940. Don and Edwina, with sons Bob, Ken, Tom and Jon, planted addi­tional orchard acreage and in the 1980’s and over­saw the con­struc­tion of a cold stor­age and pack­ing facil­ity for apples. In the mid 1990’s, the facil­ity was con­verted to a fresh cherry pack­ing line.

Today, Don’s grand­daugh­ter, Brenda Thomas and grand­son, David Ortega, along with a man­age­ment team, over­see 3,300 acres of apples, cher­ries and pears. The facil­ity packs more than 10,000 tons of cher­ries a year.

Located in the Colum­bia River Gorge, Orchard View is an excel­lent place to grow light and dark sweet cher­ries. Each cherry vari­ety they grow is selected for its pre­mium fla­vor, size and har­vest tim­ing to cre­ate a seam­less sup­ply of top qual­ity cher­ries from the Pacific Northwest.

Stem­ming from a family-​farming her­itage, David Peri has grown Peri & Sons Farms far beyond what his grand­fa­ther could have imag­ined when he emi­grated from Italy to farm in Amer­ica back in 1902. Build­ing on what he learned from his father and grand­fa­ther, today David farms thou­sands of acres of red, white, yel­low, sweet and organic onions.

Peri & Sons Farms is ded­i­cated to cre­at­ing a healthy farm­ing busi­ness that meets the needs of the present with­out com­pro­mis­ing the future. Their ded­i­ca­tion to being Non-​GMO, USDA Cer­ti­fied Organic, Pes­ti­cide Residue Free and to Food Safety has earned them the GFSI/​GlobalGAP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion ─ a level of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion not many farms are able to achieve. They are also proud to be the first recip­i­ent of SCS Global’s Sus­tain­ably Grown cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for domes­tic onions.

Pre­mier Mush­rooms is located in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia and is one of Colusa County’s fastest grow­ing agri­cul­tural busi­nesses. In fif­teen short years, the farm has expanded from 16 to 64 grow­ing rooms and grown pro­duc­tion to 300,000 pounds a week. We con­tribute our con­tin­u­ous growth to loyal busi­ness part­ner­ships and strong locally grown mar­ket­ing pro­grams.

At Pre­mier Mush­rooms, we com­post, grow, process and dis­trib­ute our prod­uct all in one loca­tion. This ver­ti­cally inte­grated sys­tem allows for greater con­sis­tency and qual­ity con­trol. Along with pro­duc­ing fresh, great tast­ing mush­rooms, Pre­mier has been actively involved in the local com­mu­nity and has been mak­ing efforts to reduce the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of oper­a­tion.

Pre­mier Mush­rooms has been the local mush­room sup­plier for Gen­eral Pro­duce since their first har­vest in 2006.

From farm to table, enjoy locally grown , Cal­i­for­nia mushrooms!

Since 1905, Ratto Bros. has been owned and oper­ated in the fam­ily tra­di­tion started by Antone L. Ratto. The son of Ital­ian immi­grants, Antone grew his own veg­eta­bles on Bay Farm Island near Oak­land and per­son­ally deliv­ered his veg­eta­bles to his cus­tomers in a horse-​drawn cart.

Antone was blessed with five sons who fol­lowed in their father’s foot­steps to become farm­ers them­selves. Col­lec­tively, the broth­ers formed the Ratto Bros. part­ner­ship in 1957. Look­ing to expand their oper­a­tions in 1962, Ratto Bros. grav­i­tated to the fer­tile San Joaquin Val­ley near Modesto, where they added sev­eral hun­dred acres of prime farm­land to their operations.

One hun­dred years and sev­eral gen­er­a­tions later, the Ratto fam­ily still grows their own veg­eta­bles and cul­ti­vates per­sonal rela­tion­ships with each of their cus­tomers. Ratto Bros. offers more than 70 vari­eties of deli­cious herbs, leafy greens, fruits, and other veg­eta­bles through­out the year.

River­dog Farm is a 450 acre diver­si­fied fam­ily farm that grows veg­eta­bles, fruits, nuts, and raises chick­ens and pigs.

They are cer­ti­fied by Cal­i­for­nia Cer­ti­fied Organic Farm­ers (CCOF) and are located in the beau­ti­ful Capay Val­ley where rich creek-​bottom soil, intense sum­mer heat and win­ter frost make excep­tion­ally tasty fruits and veg­eta­bles. Since 1990, River­dog Farm has used a sys­tem of com­post, crop rota­tion, cover crop­ping and hedgerow plant­ing to keep their soil healthy and to pro­mote a healthy ecosys­tem around their farm.

Part­ners Tim Mueller and Trini Camp­bell, along with their daugh­ter and 50 full time employ­ees, keep the farm going year-​round. Their sea­sonal, organic pro­duce reflects the best in Cal­i­for­nia locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables.

From their fields to your table, River­dog Farm offers you freshly har­vested pro­duce, every week, all year round.

The ori­gins of the Sage Fruit Com­pany are rooted in the his­tory of immi­grant fam­i­lies who came to the fer­tile Yakima Val­ley to farm. They found the cli­mate ide­ally suited to grow­ing tree fruits. In the 1900’s, these fam­i­lies took the oper­a­tions to the next level, build­ing pack­ing facil­i­ties to com­ple­ment the orchard businesses.

Founded in August, 1999, Sage Fruit Com­pany has become a pre­mier grower-​shipper of apples, pears, and cher­ries. Located in the heart of the Pacific North­west, they take great pride in a com­mit­ment to qual­ity, inno­va­tion, and ser­vice. Sage grow­ers farm sev­eral thou­sand acres of orchards through­out the state of Wash­ing­ton, as well as parts of Ore­gon. They offer many vari­ety of apples, and pears through­out the year. Dur­ing the sum­mer months, they pack Dark Sweet and Rainier cherries.

Three fam­ily busi­nesses from Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton own Sage Fruit Com­pany. These include Val­ley Fruit in Wap­ato, Olympic Fruit in Moxee, and Lar­son Fruit in Selah.

Toshio Nakada began his fam­ily com­pany in 1948 in Japan. He began grow­ing bean sprouts in 1955. His son, Masahiro Nakada, opened the USA facil­ity in Dixon, CA in 1998, and mixed great fam­ily tra­di­tions by grow­ing and sup­ply­ing the fresh­est and health­i­est prod­uct avail­able.

Salad Cosmo offers the high­est qual­ity prod­uct using the lat­est avail­able tech­nol­ogy. It is a trusted pro­ducer of Vari­ety Bean Sprouts: Mung, Alfalfa, Broc­coli, Clover, Kaiware/​Daikon, Onion, Sun­flower and Spicy Sprouts.

Salad Cosmo is envi­ron­men­tally friendly, food safe and organ­i­cally cer­ti­fied. They grow their prod­ucts using only sparkling pure water from their wells and pride them­selves on never using addi­tives or other harm­ful chem­i­cals. The company’s waste water is tested daily, weekly, and monthly before it is used to irri­gate Alfalfa fields on its land and is reused once it re-​charges the aquifer below. A lot of its pack­ag­ing is recy­clable and the sprouts that are returned or become waste prod­ucts are com­posted and incor­po­rated into the fields.

Enjoy their healthy prod­ucts with the con­fi­dence of Sci­ence, Chem­istry and Fam­ily Tradition!

Over 2 decades ago, farm­ers Nicholas and Bil­lie Jean Salle bought a dete­ri­o­rat­ing 60-​year old wal­nut orchard. They knew it required a costly invest­ment of effort and resources to bring it up to peak pro­duc­tion, but they also knew that the fer­tile soil under the trees – a nutrient-​rich river bot­tom – had the poten­tial to grow abun­dant, high-​quality fruits and vegetables.

Today, Salle Orchards is a fam­ily owned and oper­ated farm located on 70 acres in Sut­ter and Yuba Coun­ties. With approx­i­mately 3,500 trees, Salle Orchards is one of the small­est farms in the Wheat­land, Cal­i­for­nia area. The acreage is planted with 4 vari­eties of Eng­lish wal­nuts and the orchard con­tains an expan­sive vari­ety of fruit.

Pro­duce grown by the Salle fam­ily can be found at farm­ers’ mar­kets in Placer, Sacra­mento and Nevada Coun­ties as well as at their own onsite fruit stand.

The neglected, run­down orchard is now thriv­ing, thanks to the stren­u­ous, yet reward­ing, work of Nick, Bil­lie Jean and their children.

The Nishi­mori fam­ily came to Amer­ica to pur­sue the “Amer­i­can Dream” in 1906. They began their new life as farm work­ers fol­low­ing sea­sonal har­vests up and down the west coast. A few years later, they saved enough money to start their own farm in South­ern California.

Roy Nishi­mori estab­lished San Miguel Pro­duce in 1977 with fam­ily and friends, becom­ing the third gen­er­a­tion to con­tinue the fam­ily tra­di­tion of farm­ing. Over the years, San Miguel has become well known for grow­ing qual­ity leafy greens.

In the mid 1990’s, the com­pany cre­ated “Cut ‘N Clean Greens” prod­uct line with the goal and vision of pro­vid­ing peo­ple with an easy solu­tion for adding healthy greens to their diet more by elim­i­nat­ing the long and messy task of prepar­ing fresh greens.

Today, the “Cut ‘N Clean” prod­uct line has grown into 12 diverse and deli­cious vari­eties. As a spe­cial­ist in fresh, leafy cook­ing greens and with an eye toward the future, they look for­ward to expand­ing and inno­vat­ing excit­ing new vari­eties of nutri­tious greens for a hun­gry world.

Sara­bian Farms is a multi– gen­er­a­tional farm, now in its fourth gen­er­a­tion as a fam­ily grower– ship­per spe­cial­iz­ing in a vari­ety of fruits and veg­eta­bles. Its oper­a­tions all take place in the Cen­tral Val­ley of Cal­i­for­nia in Sanger.

They grow a vari­ety of row crops, includ­ing onions, fava beans, sun­chokes, Asian veg­eta­bles such as lemon grass, Asian egg­plants, okra, daikon, and numer­ous other sea­sonal items that vary from year to year. In addi­tion to the row crops, Sara­bian Farms has numer­ous per­ma­nent crops under its direct con­trol, includ­ing, grapes, water­melon, peaches, plums, and nectarines.

As a com­ple­ment to their farm­ing oper­a­tion, they have become pio­neers in pack­ag­ing. This com­bi­na­tion of grow­ing and pack­ing pro­vides them the unique abil­ity to cus­tom tai­lor spe­cific pack­ing styles for the prod­ucts they grow. Sara­bian Farms can han­dle both organic and con­ven­tional prod­uct. Their mis­sion state­ment: “Serv­ing our cus­tomers with the finest, nat­ural, Sun­shine Fresh pro­duce in the Cen­tral Valley.”

Scattaglia Farms, a million-​box ship­per of stone fruits, was estab­lished years ago in Lit­tle­rock, CA. Scattaglia Farms own­ers Louis Scattaglia, John Blalock, Sam Per­ri­cone and Bob Witt joined with Bryan Large, Anthony Mar­tino, Der­ald Rager and Craig Calan­dra as part­ners to form SGS (Scattaglia Grow­ers & Ship­pers). Also join­ing the com­pany at its found­ing were Dave Parker, Steve Rusca and Gary Gerner.

The phi­los­o­phy of SGS is ‘to deliver premium-​quality prod­uct to the con­sumer through the best cus­tomers pos­si­ble to enhance the return to the grower”. SGS seeks to achieve that goal by bring­ing together a small group of selected grow­ers who share that phi­los­o­phy. They grow, pack and ship Cal­i­for­nia Stone Fruits and Table Grapes under labels Sun Joy, Sun Disk. Peak Value and Scattaglia Farms.

At SGS, based on each indi­vid­ual vari­ety, they wait until opti­mum brix and pres­sure lev­els are present in the fruit before it is har­vested. Only by har­vest­ing fruit in this man­ner can cus­tomers be assured of hav­ing a great eat­ing expe­ri­ence every time they pick up a piece of SGS fruit. Be it stone fruit or table grapes this strat­egy has proven itself for over 50 years.

Still­wa­ter Orchards, or David J. Elliot & Son, is a grower, packer, and ship­per of fresh pears, apples, kiwifruit, and cher­ries. Since 1860, they have kept up the tra­di­tion of grow­ing pears in California.

The Elliot fam­ily mem­bers are the descen­dants of David Osburn. Right on the heels of the Gold Rush, David Osburn came to Cal­i­for­nia in the 1850s. Rec­og­niz­ing the area’s prime grow­ing con­di­tions, he ordered pear trees from the near­est avail­able sup­plier: France. They arrived in 1860, and Still­wa­ter Orchards was born.

Word of the mag­nif­i­cent fruit from those trees soon spread. It is said that stern­wheel river­boats full of min­ers would pull up to Still­wa­ter Land­ing, where they would start bid­ding for pears before the pad­dles stopped turn­ing. Gold may have been plen­ti­ful, but pears were rare!

In 1951, David J. Elliot Sr. and his son, David J. Elliot Jr. started David J. Elliot and Son. Today, the Elliot fam­ily still packs a pre­mium box of fruit.

The Sun­ny­side Pack­ing Co. was founded in 1948 by three men: Fred Hira­suna, Minoru Omata and Mor­ris Cocola.

They cre­ated the com­pany, orig­i­nally located in Fresno, in an effort to share the high qual­ity prod­uct from local farm­ers with non-​local buy­ers. Sun­ny­side quickly grew, and need­ing more space, moved their oper­a­tion to Selma, Cal­i­for­nia in 1977.

Today, the busi­ness is still fam­ily owned. Sun­ny­side Pack­ing prides itself on the same found­ing val­ues. They are best known for their supreme straw­ber­ries and wide vari­ety of inter­est­ing and deli­cious vegetables.

Sun­ny­side aims to remain a pos­i­tive influ­ence in the com­mu­nity, indus­try, and envi­ron­ment in which they reside. They have become more than sim­ply a boom­ing busi­ness, they are an active com­mu­nity part­ner win­ning trust and wide cus­tomer loyalty.

In 1914, R.A. Symms came to Idaho from Kansas and founded Symms Fruit Ranch. The ranch began as an eighty acre home­stead 30 miles west of Boise in Sunny Slope. Eight acres of fruit trees were planted then.

Today, Symms Fruit Ranch is a 5,000 acre diver­si­fied farm man­aged by the fourth gen­er­a­tion of the Symms Fam­ily & located in the unique Sunny Slope area along the Snake River. Apples, pears, cher­ries, apri­cots, peaches, nec­tarines, plums, wine grapes, onions, for­age, seeds, grains, and cat­tle are pro­duced on the rich vol­canic soil over­look­ing the Snake River.

Symms Fruit Ranch is rec­og­nized as one of the Top 25 Grow­ers & Ship­pers of apples & stone fruits in the United States. Their prod­ucts are dis­trib­uted through­out the United States and exported to over 40 coun­tries worldwide.

Qual­ity, fla­vor, value and sus­tain­abil­ity are their hall­mark. The Symms fam­ily is proud to have sus­tained their oper­a­tion as grow­ers of the high­est qual­ity fruit in the world for 100+ years.

The seeds for Terra Firma Farm were planted in the late 1980’s when Paul Holmes began farm­ing a few acres in the hills west of Win­ters with a few friends under the name Sky High Farm. Paul devel­oped a fol­low­ing for his gar­lic, toma­toes, and other veg­eta­bles as one of the found­ing mem­bers of both the Davis Farm­ers Mar­ket and Berke­ley Farm­ers Mar­ket. Sky High Farm was also one of the orig­i­nal mem­bers of Cal­i­for­nia Cer­ti­fied Organic Farm­ers, prior to offi­cial state and fed­eral recog­ni­tion of organics.

In the early 1990s, Paul hired Hec­tor Melendez-​Lopez and Paul Under­hill (Pablito) as employ­ees. Pablito became a part­ner in 1993, when the name of the farm was changed to Terra Firma, and Hec­tor joined on in 2005.

Together, they farm a num­ber of sites along the north and south banks of Putah Creek total­ing about 200 acres. Micro cli­mates and dif­fer­ent soil types allow us to pro­duce almost 100 dif­fer­ent crops each year, includ­ing spring, sum­mer and win­ter veg­eta­bles as well as stone fruit, cit­rus and nuts (pis­ta­chios and walnuts).

As third gen­er­a­tion grow­ers, the Vig­nolo fam­ily has owned and oper­ated farm­ing land in Cen­tral Cal­i­for­nia since 1938. Ted Vig­nolo, the son of an Ital­ian immi­grant, started grow­ing cot­ton in 1938. Soon after, the fam­ily expanded the busi­ness to include con­ven­tional and organic table grapes, wine grapes, organic and con­ven­tional pota­toes, pis­ta­chios, alfalfa, and almonds.

To sup­port demand for the grow­ing busi­ness, an on-​site mar­ket­ing com­pany, Top Brass Mar­ket­ing, was estab­lished in 1999. Since that time, Top Brass Mar­ket­ing has been hon­ored to be the exclu­sive sales agent for Vig­nolo Farms, mar­ket­ing their fine grapes and pota­toes to retail, whole­sale, and food­ser­vice dis­tri­b­u­tion accounts worldwide.

The Top Brass sales team brings over 70 years of expe­ri­ence and are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing indi­vid­u­al­ized ser­vice that cus­tomers can rely on. Many years have passed since Ted planted his first crop, but the Vig­nolo Farms phi­los­o­phy remains the same — hands-​on fam­ily farm­ing with a focus on grow­ing only pre­mium pro­duce. Cul­ti­vated with care­ful atten­tion in some of the most fer­tile soil in the coun­try, Top Brass Mar­ket­ing is known for its atten­tion to qual­ity from farm to table

The Tur­lock Fruit Com­pany has been grow­ing and pack­ing mel­ons as a fam­ily owned oper­a­tion since 1918. Their fla­vor­ful mel­ons are a result of care­ful seed selec­tion, good farm­ing prac­tices, har­vest­ing mel­ons at matu­rity, and post-​harvest han­dling. To make things even sweeter, Tur­lock Fruit Com­pany mel­ons are cer­ti­fied pes­ti­cide residue free!

Tur­lock Fruit Com­pany has been syn­ony­mous with the can­taloupe indus­try for more than three-​quarters of a cen­tury. In fact, the founder of the firm, James H. Smith, was com­monly called by his nick­name, Can­taloupe Smith. He founded the firm in 1923 and it has been grow­ing can­taloupes, hon­ey­dews and mixed mel­ons ever since.

In recent years, the 4th gen­er­a­tion fam­ily com­pany has expanded its grow­ing oper­a­tions from its San Joaquin Val­ley roots to include pro­duc­tion in the Impe­r­ial Val­ley and Mex­ico. Look for labels Pea­cock, King O’ The West and Sycamore for sweet and won­der­ful sum­mer mel­ons from Tur­lock Fruit!

Van Gronin­gen & Sons, Inc. is a con­tin­u­a­tion of a farm­ing oper­a­tion that began in Cal­i­for­nia in 1922 by Henry Van Gronin­gen Sr. He camt to Amer­ica in 1910 from theNether­lands and first farmed in Min­nesota and then on the fer­tile grounds of Fresno/​Hanford, Cal­i­for­nia. There he started a dairy and also farmed some row crops. In 1929, the fam­ily and farm­ing busi­ness moved to Ripon, Cal­i­for­nia with the help of four sons.

Today, the cor­po­ra­tion is fam­ily owned and oper­ated by sons, grand­sons, in-​laws, and also by work­ers that have been with the fam­ily for over 45 years. This new gen­er­a­tion proves to fol­low in their fathers’ foot­steps, ensur­ing that the pro­duce they offer is of the high­est qual­ity while con­duct­ing busi­ness with hon­esty, integrity, and respon­si­bil­ity.

The farm­ing oper­a­tion now con­sists of grow­ing sweet corn, water­mel­ons, pump­kins, vari­ety win­ter squash, alfalfa, almonds and wal­nuts. For sum­mer water­melon (seeded and seed­less) and fall pump­kins, trust the Van Gronin­gen fam­ily to deliver over 70 years of exper­tise in grow­ing your favorite treats!

David Vierra says of his pas­sion for farm­ing, “It’s in my blood, I can’t help it.” David’s grand­fa­ther, Ellard Vierra, helped set­tle the Sacra­mento River Delta in the 1920’s, and farmed full time until the mid 60’s when he was offered a job with Recla­ma­tion Dis­trict 999. Ellard could not stop farm­ing, and in his spare time he main­tained a two acre gar­den on his prop­erty in West Sacra­mento. That same gar­den is the site of Dave’s Pump­kin Patch.

When David was in the 8th grade, he trav­eled to Apple Hill. It was that trip that inspired David to grow pump­kins. David’s mother couldn’t keep David out of their fam­ily gar­den. At the age of 13, David started grow­ing his first pump­kin patch. Five years later, at the age of 18, Vierra Farms was estab­lished. At that time, Vierra Farms had a com­mod­ity of grass hay and wheat yet David never lost sight of his pump­kin patch.

Today, David still cul­ti­vates his grandfather’s 2 acre gar­den plus 800 acres of spe­cialty veg­eta­bles. His spe­cialty items include pump­kins, 6 vari­eties of hard squash, Heir­loom and slic­ing toma­toes, black seed­less water­mel­ons, yel­low seed­less water­mel­ons and reg­u­lar water­mel­ons. David’s chil­dren: his daugh­ter, Isabella, and his two sons, Jace and Ayden — all live and work on the farm.

Wada Farms has a 70+ year his­tory of pride, excel­lence and respect – and an obses­sion for pro­vid­ing things of intrin­sic value to their cus­tomers and partners.

Estab­lished in 1943, Wada Farms was founded by Frank Wada, who emi­grated to the U.S. from Japan in 1922 at the age of 13. He and his wife Agnes farmed in San Clemente, Cal­i­for­nia, until World War II broke out. They packed as many belong­ings as their 1934 Ford truck could hold, then moved inland dur­ing the war to avoid intern­ment when Japan­ese Amer­i­cans were forced to relo­cate from the west coast. After set­tling in Pin­gree, Idaho, the deci­sion was made to plant their fam­ily roots and first crop of pota­toes on 160 rented acres of farm­land in the spring of 1943.

By 1972, the Wada fam­ily farm had grown to approx­i­mately 400 acres when Frank’s youngest son, Albert, bought the fam­ily busi­ness from his father. Under his lead­er­ship, Wada Farms Inc. has grown into a suc­cess­ful Idaho-​based agribusi­ness, now farm­ing nearly 30,000 irri­gated acres of crops each and every year.

As a fully inte­grated grower-​shipper of Rus­set, red, gold and spe­cialty vari­eties, Wada Farms Pota­toes oper­ates one of the largest fresh potato pack­ing facil­i­ties in the coun­try. Albert and his wife Chris­tine have four chil­dren; the two boys, Bryan and Chris, are both active in the fam­ily oper­a­tion. In 2010, Bryan Wada was named com­pany president.

Wada Farms has a rep­u­ta­tion not just for qual­ity, but for lead­er­ship in new ways of doing things and under­stand­ing trends and opportunities.

WAWONA ORCHARDS & PACK­ING is a third gen­er­a­tion tree fruit com­pany founded by the Smittcamp fam­ily in 1948. They are cur­rently farm­ing 6,000 acres in Cal­i­for­nia and pack just over four mil­lion boxes per year.

Their mis­sion is to pro­duce the most fla­vor­ful tree fruit in the indus­try, pack to the high­est stan­dards, and deliver on a con­sis­tent basis; ensur­ing cus­tomers the ulti­mate eat­ing expe­ri­ence. One indi­ca­tor is the gen­tle han­dling they give to tree-​fruit. The fruit is hand picked and packed into 23 lb. bins rather than the stan­dard 1000 lb. orchard bins.

Their pack­ing facil­ity was rebuilt in 2006, adding state-​of-​the-​art pack lines, pre-​coolers, and cold stor­age rooms. Con­trol­ling the con­ti­nu­ity of sup­ply, vari­etals, and qual­ity, Wawona does not have any out­side grow­ers or packers.

Wawona also grows and packs a full line up of organic tree fruit.

Yagi Broth­ers Pro­duce, Inc. is a top grower, packer and ship­per of Yams and Sweet Pota­toes in Liv­ingston, Cal­i­for­nia. The com­pany was founded shortly after World War II by three broth­ers, George, Ken and Ben Yagi.

They grow Orange Flesh Yams (Beau­re­gard and Red Yams), White flesh Sweet Pota­toes (O’Henry), and Japan­ese Yams. They ship to all 50 states in the United States, with most sales west of the Rockies.

Today, the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion, Blaine Yagi and Duane Hut­ton, con­tin­ues the tra­di­tion of hard work and com­mit­ment to qual­ity and grow­ing exper­tise. Yagi Broth­ers packs and ships under the fol­low­ing famil­iar labels:

• Gold N’ Honey
• Kokuma
• Sugar Dandy
• Jumbo & Gold