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Christopher Ranch, the Gilroy, CA- based company that is the leading garlic producer in the United States, has significantly increased its California production of organic garlic and the firm is now selling only garlic grown in the United States in the Christopher Ranch label.
Christopher Ranch has been one of the more outspoken critics of garlic grown in China and exported to the United States. The company has long claimed that the Chinese garlic is “dumped” into the U.S. market at below market prices. Consequently, the firm does not utilize any Chinese garlic in its own packaging and only supplies the Chinese garlic to some customers of its other products looking for a low-priced garlic alternative.
Ken Christopher, vice president at Christopher Ranch, said for this current season organic garlic grown in California will account for about 10 percent of the company’s production, which matches fairly closely with the demand side of the equation.
Ken Christopher, vice president at Christopher Ranch
“We will have 10 million pounds and we have estimated that our customer demand will be between nine and 10 million pounds of organic garlic,” he said.
Over the last few years, as the firm has been ramping up its organic production within California, it has sourced from other countries, most notably Argentina. With the increased California production, Christopher said all of its organic garlic is now U.S. grown. “Over the last two years, about 60 percent of our garlic was grown in California and 40 percent came mostly from Argentina,” he said. “The problem was the late season organic garlic. We were fine for the first part of the year but we had to switch to Argentina later in the year.”
Garlic is grown throughout the spring and summer and harvested from July through September. With regard to the 2018/19 organic crop, Christopher said the company was near the end of its California harvest, and the late season garlic was still looking very good.
“This is the best organic crop we have ever had,” he said, noting that growing an organic crop requires extra care and work. “We’ve been working on it for several years and finally got the quality to where we want it.”
While demand continues to grow for both conventional and organic garlic, Christopher was confident that the current level of production is pretty well matched with the demand for the next season. He said the small gap between demand and production (less than one million pounds) will allow the firm to promote organic garlic for the first time this fall. The company is anticipating some promotional pricing on the organic products to the tune of 10-15 percent below the typical price.
“Our goal is to increase demand and get some of the conventional organic consumers to try organic,” Christopher said.
Christopher Ranch's organic California grown garlic.
Speaking a few days before a new U.S. tariff on Chinese garlic was scheduled to kick in, Christopher said the company was very excited about that new tariff. The Trump Administration announced a 10 percent tariff would be imposed on September 24, rising to 25 percent on January 1.
Christopher acknowledged not all segments of agriculture are happy with the trade wars as there have been retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports. But he said for Chinese garlic the tariffs are necessary to help protect the U.S. industry. He reiterated that the dumping of Chinese garlic has caused significant damage to the California industry, which is the home to almost all U.S. production. He said the number of California garlic producers has shrunk from 12 to three over the past decade.
The company grows in several districts in California, including some new ones further north in the San Joaquin Valley. “Climate change is real,” he said. “We used to have more production in Bakersfield and Fresno but we have moved north closer to Modesto because of the weather.”
The company is in the process of designing new packaging to tout its All-American sourcing. Christopher said the packaging will have a patriotic theme and he expects it to be introduced by the end of the year.
