Teaming of Grimmway Farms and Cal-Organic Created Organic Leader

By Keith Loria  

As a family-owned company that can trace its roots all the way back to a single produce stand in Anaheim, CA that began in the early ’60s, Grimmway Farms still relies on the same commitment to customers and honoring sustainable practices that was the cornerstone of that original entity.

Grimmway Farms was primarily a carrot company and in the late ’90s, started to grow carrots organically.

In 2001, Grimmway Farms joined forces with Cal-Organic to expand its organic offerings and make organic produce more available to consumers, and today offers more than 65 seasonal and year-round organic varieties.

Jeff Huckaby, President, Gimmway Farms

“We started using all of Cal-Organic’s rotations and crops they were growing—lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, etc.—and found good success in building a stronger, better organic program,” says Jeff Huckaby, President of the Bakersfield, CA-based company. “We have over 40,000 acres of organics today under the Cal-Organic label.”

The company has seen more and more mainstream retailers switching to organic, and sees the future of organic as being strong.

“We continue to buy more organic ground and convert it. We are big fans of buying premium ground that has grown really good conventional crops and setting it out for three years, and don’t farm it in transitional acreage,” Huckaby says. “We do composting and cover cropping and germinating for that three-year period so at the end, when certified, the soil is healthy and ready to go.”

Cal-Organic now has land in Washington, Georgia, Florida, Colorado and other key areas where it has long farmed in California.

There are challenges to doing things at such a high level.

“The cost to do organics is still higher due to the weed pressure and fertility programs that are required versus conventional,” Huckaby says. “While all the other processors and procedures are very similar, getting the fields completely weed-free so they are not competing with the crop you have in the ground when you don’t have herbicides to spray is very costly.”

Because of the costs involved to do what it needs to do from a fertility standpoint, organics will never be at the same price as conventional and Huckaby says that will hinder the growth of organics going forward.

Still, there’s a growing demand and many items are still taking off. Kale started to become big a few years ago and cauliflower is one of the latest organic items trending large.

“In the last year or so, beets have really trended upward as well,” Huckaby says. “One thing we are focused on is getting full utilization of the crop and we’ve done a really nice job on the carrots with everything from whole carrots to baby carrots to shredded and everything all the way down to carrot juice. I think there’s an opportunity to capitalize on all the products that can be created from an organic source.”

Cauliflower rice is one example and more opportunities to make organic byproducts should be coming down the pike soon.

“In the past, there has been limited supply of organic raw material and as organics continues to grow and acreage increases, the supply is more available and creates the more byproduct as well,” Huckaby says. “There’s going to be lots of opportunities in the future for that and makes a more efficient use of the crop.”

The company owns all of its land and doesn’t use outside growers, to ensure the quality and consistency stays the same.

Grimmway is celebrating its 50^th anniversary in 2019. The philosophy of Grimmway Farms and Cal-Organic harkens back to the original founders of the produce stand—take care of the customer and back up any commitments.

“We strive every day to do that. We meet regularly with all of the retailers on our organic programs and ask them what they want us to do, and what they would like us to try,” Huckaby says. “When you have those relationships, we can sit down and put together a program. That emphasis on doing what the customer wants us to do has been doing really well for us.”