Local Growers

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.

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”.

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.

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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!

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.

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.

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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!