Organic Processing Vo1.8 #4 - July/August 2011

OP: Over the years, what have been the most important milestones in the growth of Earthbound Farm?

Goodman: When we started, we sold organic raspberries on the side of the road and neighbors would buy salad and other products out of a fridge on our porch and leave money in a drop box. We grew to a $3 million business on that little farm with a 600-square-foot house. Then we started a seasonal farm stand down the road, which became a year-round indoor farm stand and cafe with one of the first certified organic kitchens in the country.

We started with a lot of small customers and grew by having more small customers.

One of our biggest milestones, however, was in

1993 when Costco started buying from us.

At that point, Costco was up and coming and as soon as other retailers saw our product doing well at Costco, they wanted our products, too.

Interestingly, at first Costco felt that the “organic” label equated to lower quality food that was overpriced. It was the common perception in the early days when the organic you would find in stores was often spotted, wilted, smaller, etc. Because of this, the buyer felt that “organic” would not go over well with consumers and actually asked us to take it off the label. Deciding if we should sell a nonorganic Earthbound product was a really big decision for us. It actually worked out, though. Costco was growing so quickly, there was no way we could have filled their orders and other retailers who wanted organic anyway. With the three-year conversion to organic, we were able to sell our transitional product

Earthbound was the first to launch prewashed baby lettuce salad mixes in retail.

to Costco and convert tens of thousands of acres to organic at the same time. It was serendipitous.

Sometimes I call it the “Costco Catapult.” It took us to a whole other level.

Then, in 1995, we partnered with Mission Ranches, a big third-generation conventional farm in the Salinas Valley that wanted to grow organic. By the late ’90s, we had enough acreage to grow a large volume of organic, and by that point Costco really wanted organic. At the time, there was a lot of conventional competition in the spring salad mix category, so organic became our point of differentiation.

Costco is very committed to organic now, and working with them enabled us to get a huge distribution into supermarkets and really grow before there was a high demand for organic. It also set us up to have enough volume to be the biggest grower of organic produce when there was demand.

According to the 2010 Organic Trade Association Manufacturers Survey, 4 percent of the food sold last year in this country was organic. However, in the baby greens category, 48 percent of the sales are organic! There’s nothing else in the or-

Myra and Drew Goodman in the early days of Earthbound Farm.

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