In Their Words: Earl’s Organic Produce’s Drew Knobel

Drew Knobel is director of sales and marketing for Earl’s Organic Produce, a 100 percent certified organic produce distributor based in San Francisco. OPN recently caught up with Drew for a conversation about his background in produce, Earl’s customer base and retail support services, organic produce trends, the company’s plans for the future, and more.

Drew Knobel, Director of Sales and Marketing, Earl's Organic Produce 

What is your background in the produce industry?

In 1997, I got a job as purchasing manager for Farallon restaurant when it opened in San Francisco, which led me to start sourcing from Greenleaf, a Bay Area foodservice distributor. Through Greenleaf, I ended up meeting and interfacing with leaders in the organic movement like Warren Weber at Star Route Farms. I later took a job at OpenTable during the dotcom boom. It was a lot of fun working for a startup tech company and was an opportunity that really exposed me to cold-calling sales. From there, I was offered a sales manager position at Greenleaf and was later promoted to director of sales. In my 15 years at Greenleaf, the company’s revenue grew from $19 million to $84 million.

When did you start working at Earl’s, and what led you to work there?

In 2016, Earl Herrick and Robert Lichtenberg at Earl’s asked me to come work for them as director of sales and marketing. I was drawn to Earl’s because of their obvious commitment to organics and sustainable farming and their nonnegotiable commitment to carrying solely certified organic produce.

Robert Lichtenberg and Earl Herrick

Once I got to Earl's, Robert and Earl just completely educated me on what organic really means. It turned into a lifestyle of mine. I only eat organic now, and I’m a proponent of it wherever I am. I talk about it, live it, and sleep it—and my family does too. Everybody in this industry is like that. They really don't sacrifice their organic values for anything, including money, which is so refreshing.

“I was drawn to Earl’s because of their obvious commitment to organics and sustainable farming and their nonnegotiable commitment to carrying solely certified organic produce.” -Drew Knobel

Can you describe Earl’s customer base and distribution area?

We've got about 300 customers, and our service area is from Central California up to the Oregon border and out to the Nevada border. Our customers are 99 percent retail at this time, especially with COVID wiping out a lot of foodservice (although that's starting to come back, and it'll be exciting to see how that gets reimagined).

We do different retail market segments—we sell to customers like Good Eggs, Urban Remedy, and some bakeries, but mostly we sell to all the co-ops (except the one in Quincy) and many of the natural foods stores in Northern California.

Oliver's Markets in Sonoma County has been a fantastic addition to our customer base in recent years—we're really growing and learning together. Since we started working with them in 2016, they’ve gone from about 60/40 conventional to probably 60/40 organic now—and growing.

“I only eat organic now, and I’m a proponent of it wherever I am. I talk about it, live it, and sleep it—and my family does too.” -Drew Knobel

What retail support services does Earl’s offer?

The sales team at Earl’s comes from a retail background of at least three to five years. We talk to our customers every day and send out weekly buyer's notes, not only educating them on varieties, growing areas, growers, and fair trade and the different certifications but also problem solving their business—talking about the retail goals they have and how to achieve them, how to merchandise, how to run ads, and how to store product.

And we’ve got a couple of sales reps that go into the different stores to help them. Labor's such a problem that we've had some stores that just don't have any produce people in there at all. So they don't know how to set up a cooler to keep things fresh, how to set up displays, how to merchandise, etc. Recently, the Davis Co-op lost their produce manager, and they had nobody running the department except the store manager right before Thanksgiving.

Wow, what did they do?

On the afternoon before Thanksgiving, one of our sales reps Jacob Levy got in his car and went over there and broke down three or four pallets of wet produce with the Davis Co-op store manager and helped her set up the produce department.

At Earl’s, we are committed to that level of engagement. There isn't a dollar amount where we think, well, that's a misuse of labor. We're here for the continual growth and proliferation of people using organics. We want to support what our growers are trying to do by supporting our customers. Our job is to show our customers how to be successful with organics and why they should be carrying more organics—and ideally all organics.

“We're here for the continual growth and proliferation of people using organics. We want to support what our growers are trying to do by supporting our customers.” -Drew Knobel

What trends have you noticed in the organic produce industry in recent years?

Fair trade has been increasing, which is great. Sustainable packaging has definitely been something that was really ramping up—and then COVID hit. But now more people are moving back into it. However, there are supply chain issues, so getting sustainable packaging through the pipeline to the growers has been challenging. But I would say that trend will continue to grow and then surpass where it was over two years ago.

Another trend we’re seeing is that there’s more dragon fruit around. And who knows where that's going to go, but it's fun to watch. It's fun to see something like that take off with more people cutting open a dragon fruit and going, “Oh wow!”

Earl's magenta dragonfruit

One of my major concerns is the disappearing California asparagus. That has been going on for a couple years and has accelerated. We're really close to only being able to get it from a few smaller farms—and access may only be possible from the farmers markets. People keep disking under huge amounts of California asparagus acreage because, quite frankly, Mexican asparagus is so much cheaper that California asparagus just doesn't make economic sense.

“Our job is to show our customers how to be successful with organics and why they should be carrying more organics—and ideally all organics.” -Drew Knobel

What are Earl’s plans for the future?

We recently acquired 30,000 more square feet of space in our building, where we just finished constructing three new ripening rooms and have a half-million-dollar refrigeration build-out going on. Another exciting thing—which we'll probably roll out in the first quarter—is the Earl’s brand refresh. We’ll have a new logo and a new website, and we’ll have branded trucks for the first time ever. It will be the first formal rollout of a brand refresh in Earl’s 30-plus-year history.