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In 1972, organic grower Carlos Cortes partnered with a client and brought the first commercially grown organic bananas to the United States. Twenty-eight years later, Cortes’ daughter and her husband, Mayra and Manuel Velazquez de León, started Organics Unlimited with the mission of providing the premium quality organic bananas and other tropical fruit to the United States.
Today, Organics Unlimited is a vertically-integrated grower-packer-shipper based in San Diego, CA, with 80 percent of its production in Mexico and 20 percent in Ecuador. Mayra Velazquez de León is president and CEO of the company, and full-time promoter of the sustainability movement.
Velazquez de León is passionate about organic production and says it is the only fresh sector in which the firm operates. “We have always been focused on sustainability. It is who we are. We believe in it,” she said.
The company does not offer conventional bananas but it does offer its organic bananas in both a regular and a fully sustainable version under the GROW (Giving Resources and Opportunities to Workers) program. Sixty cents of every box of GROW organic bananas is directed toward these programs.
Mayra Velazquez de León, President and CEO of Organics Unlimited
Velazquez de León said the sustainability play extends beyond the ranch as the company touts its closer point for most of its production in Mexico versus South America, which allows the firm to have the smallest carbon footprint of any banana company selling in the United States.
She calls Organics Unlimited “the real organic banana supplier,” offering is a family tradition borne of commitment rather than a marketing philosophy designed to appeal to a broader swath of buyers.
Velazquez de León believes in the future there won’t be a distinction between organic and conventional produce, as all produce will be organically grown. She doesn’t believe organic production is a trend but rather a choice to be more sustainable with a growing number of devotees around the world.
She points to large organic plantations being planted in both India and Pakistan. “It might not happen soon, but it is going to happen,” Velazquez de León said of full conversion to organic production.
Further, Velazquez de León said organic banana producers appear to have a long term advantage over product grown conventionally. Currently, the disease black sigatoka is a fierce enemy of the banana plant. It attacks the leaves and hampers production. Conventional growers continue to use chemicals to battle the disease, and that fungus continually adapts making those applications less effective and the plants more susceptible.
GROW organic banana boxes
There is research trying to find new cultivars but there is nothing yet on the horizon to replace the Cavendish cultivars, which have dominated the commercial banana industry for 60 years. “We don’t fight the disease; we try to control it,” Velazquez de León said, indicating that organic growers have achieved some success.
Currently the organic banana industry is experiencing strong growth. Velazquez de León said supplies are growing industry wide at about a 20 percent annual clip. Organics Unlimited has just completed a significant three-year expansion project in Mexico going from less than 1100 acres in 2015 to an expected 1865 acres by the end of this year.
For this fall period, Velazquez de León said organic banana volume is heading into a period with a slight reduction in production, which is normal. While banana supplies are fairly steady throughout the year, they tend to decline in late January to May because of weather issues, which unfortunately coincides with the heavy demand period in the United States.
Velazquez de León is not anticipating a period of oversupply for organic bananas. Even though supply is increasing at a very healthy clip, she said demand continues to grow and is keeping up with that supply growth.
