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Oxnard-based San Miguel Produce began its journey as a commodity vegetable shipper in 1975. Twenty years later, the company launched a value-added line called “Cut ‘N Clean”, as the first washed and ready-to-use cooking green.
This same effort to stand out from the crowd led to its first introduction of an organic cooking green line in 2007. Today, its year-round organic offerings include three kales, three chards and three collard greens.
Cut N Clean Greans, the first ready to use organic cooking greens
Garrett Nishimori, the company’s sales and marketing manager and nephew of company founder Roy Nishimori, said the organic product line started slowly and continues to grow as demand increases. On a seasonal basis, the company occasionally grows other organic crops, such as cilantro and bok choy, when an opportunity arises.
Garrett Nishimori, San Miguel Produce sales and marketing manager
The younger Nishimori said while organic demand continues to increase, it’s a balancing act to make sure supplies don’t grow faster than the demand. “We need to get the premium because it is a lot more expensive to grow the organic crops,” Garrett Nishimori said. “We continue to strive to get more efficient to cut down those added costs.”
The company sells its organic output in bulk commodities and packaged in the Cut ‘N Clean value-added packaging. While kale continues as the darling of the “foodie class”, chard is also gaining popularity as are the traditional cooking greens.
When Roy Nishimori changed the direction of the firm to focus on greens, he admits that it was very much a niche category, oriented toward southern cooking and the African-American community. As such, San Miguel worked closely with retailers identifying the supermarket locations with similar advantageous demographics.
Roy Nishimori, San Miguel Produce owner
Today is a different story. Kale is featured in virtually every white table cloth restaurant in the country and the item often pops up on the many cooking shows. Along with and its fellow greens, organic kale’s year round availability, versatility, and nutritional profile has given it extended shelf life in the fast lane, as every retailer features greens as part of its produce set.
Garrett Nishimori said while it is a bit more difficult to grow organic greens in the summer because of increased pest pressure, it is also the time when the product line is produced more quickly in the field and is available in large quantities because of that. Nishimori said its get too hot in the South to produce what he called the “southern greens” so buyers are looking to the West for the product.
He also noted that while home grown and local deals around the country do infiltrate conventional vegetable sales it is not a big issue when it comes to organic greens. By and large, there is not an influx of regional organic greens in the summer months. “Winter is the season for greens in the South,” Nishimori said.
