California’s Cuyama Orchards Expects Excellent Organic Apple Crop This Year

For more than three decades, Cuyama Orchards has been growing apples in the high desert of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties—and this year the grower-shipper is expecting a high-yield crop of excellent quality.

Cuyama Orchards got its start in 1992 when hay farmers Howard and Jean Albano decided to make the switch to growing apples by planting 20 acres of the Nagafu Fuji variety right outside of their farmhouse.

Howard and Jean Albano

“In the mid- to late ‘80s, Fuji apples were a new phenomenon in America, and they really took the market by storm,” says Byron Albano, Howard’s son and the current owner of Cuyama Orchards. “People just loved them compared to the Red Delicious and Golden Delicious.”

Byron Albano, Owner, Cuyama Orchards

Byron says his father and other Cuyama Valley-area farmers took note of a nearby grower, Don Douglas, who had begun planting Fuji apples in the early ‘80s. “He was really ahead of the curve, and he demonstrated that we would just get these phenomenally delicious apples in this region,” Byron says. “And so many other growers in the valley, which were mostly hay growers, thought, Oh, whoa, that's exciting; we need to get into apples.”

So a number of Cuyama Valley growers, including Byron’s parents, jumped on the Fuji bandwagon, and by the mid-‘90s the Albano family had about 80 acres of the Japanese apple variety.

“In the mid- to late ‘80s, Fuji apples were a new phenomenon in America, and they really took the market by storm.” - Byron Albano

“But the problem was that there were so many farms that followed suit in terms of planting Fuji apples that by the late 1990s, the market completely crashed,” Byron says. “And most of those California Fuji apple growers took their Fujis out and decided that they had other options that were more profitable than apples. But my parents did not.”

In fact, Byron says, in 1996 his parents expanded into Pink Ladies. They’d placed an order for 20 acres worth of trees before the major market crash and then tried to back out, but the nursery said it was too late—they had to take the order.

Eric (top) and Gregory (bottom right) Albano thin apples on the farm with their crew boss Augustin (bottom left) in the early summer

About a year later, in 1997, Byron joined the company on the sales side. “It was the worst time ever,” he says. “Apples were going for $3.50 a box at that point in time. You just couldn't give them away.”

So he decided to employ a strategy he and his family had used in the hay business—direct delivery to retail.

“[Don Douglas] was really ahead of the curve, and he demonstrated that we would just get these phenomenally delicious apples in this region.” - Byron Albano

“I essentially started knocking on doors in LA,” Byron recalls. “We picked apples straight into used watermelon bins right in the field, loaded them up on a refrigerated truck. And I was driving the truck to downtown LA and knocking on doors saying, ‘Hey, this is what we got. What do you think?’ It was very unconventional what we did.”

The strategy was successful, and Byron says Whole Foods Market was particularly receptive. “Whole Foods Market in Los Angeles loved this program. We would just pick apples straight out of the field and drive them straight down to their distribution center, and they’d go straight out to the stores. We were able to provide that to them at a very, very competitive price point and still make a profit because it was so direct.”

Byron Albano prepares a shipment of Granny Smith and Fuji apples

At that time, in 1998, Cuyama Orchards’ fruit was transitional, and by the following year all its apples were certified organic.

Byron says he and his family made the decision to go organic for market-driven reasons. They felt they had the “best Fuji apple you could grow” and to get the best price, they needed it to be organic.

Given the low pest and disease pressure in the high-desert climate of the Cuyama Valley (the Albano family orchards are at an elevation of 3,200 feet), growing organically was a natural fit. Byron says he was also happy that growing organically provided a healthy working environment, one free of synthetic pesticides and herbicides.

Full crates of freshly picked early Fuji apples are pulled out to be shipped

Over the years, Byron and his family have fully embraced the organic movement, and he firmly believes organic growing methods yield better-quality fruit. “Conventional growers will just pump nitrogen into the trees, and it creates all kinds of size that you want but at the cost of flavor and quality. An organic grower is not doing that. An organic grower's fertilizing through compost and manure and really soil health and soil building to get that result. So a conventional grower is almost taking a shortcut, but it's not really a good shortcut. It's just a cheaper, easier shortcut.”

Byron says the program with Whole Foods went strong for about a decade, but then things changed. The retailer became more picky about sizing and appearance, desiring more uniform apple displays. As a result, it was only able to take about 50 percent of Cuyama’s range of production versus 80 percent previously. 

"We picked apples straight into used watermelon bins right in the field, loaded them up on a refrigerated truck. And I was driving the truck to downtown LA and knocking on doors saying, ‘Hey, this is what we got. What do you think?’ It was very unconventional what we did.” - Byron Albano

Other retailers made a similar shift, Byron says, so he’s had to find new markets for his apples that don’t make the traditional retail cut. He now sells to local schools and food hubs and has dramatically increased his SoCal farmers market presence.

Over the years, Cuyama Orchards has expanded beyond Fujis and Pink Ladies to also offer Galas, Sweeties, Honeycrisps, Granny Smiths, Crimson Golds, Evercrisps, Arkansas Blacks, and Sundowners. The company also has its own state-of-the-art controlled atmosphere cold storage facility and packing line.

Organic Crimson Gold baby apples

Byron says this season’s crop is looking great due to lots of rain—“rainwater is like manna from heaven for trees”—a good winter chill, and no pre-spring warm-up.

“We have an excellent crop this year. It's like a 50 percent increase in production versus our last several years, which have been very weak production,” he says. “When the weather gets hot pre-spring, it really screws up a lot of fruit set. And that's what happened last season up and down the West Coast to a lot of crops.”

Cuyama Orchards Orleans-process raw unfiltered organic apple cider vinegar

Cuyama’s harvest is running about three weeks later this year, and Byron estimates it will begin in early September with Galas, followed by Sweeties, Honeycrisps, and Beni Shogun Fujis as the month progresses. The other varieties will start being harvested in October and November. He’s also very excited about a new product that he’s offering to retailers for the first time this year—a raw apple cider vinegar produced using the Orleans process.

“It's a double fermentation,” Byron says. “First you brew into a hard cider, and then you brew the hard cider into vinegar. We're brewing it in oak bourbon barrels, and you get a really rich, raw apple cider vinegar that is unfiltered and really awesome stuff.”