Natural Selection Foods LLC, San Juan Bautista, Calif., plans to phase out its growing and processing of conventional fresh produce as soon as this spring, and will emphasize marketing under the Earthbound Farm brand as the company’s two processing facilities convert to organic.
“Foodservice is the next big frontier in produce,” Mike Stevens, senior director of sales said. “The reality is you can go into any retail outlet from Los Angeles to Bangor, Maine, and buy organic fruits and vegetables, but you’d be hard pressed to find an organic restaurant in most major metropolitan areas of the country. At some point, foodservice really has to embrace organic because people will demand it and it has been an area of focus for us for many years.”
He said as the company’s two facilities, in San Juan Bautista and Yuma, Ariz., shift to organic, the volume of conventional product will be replaced by organic and there will be no reduction in overall volume. He said the organic category has grown steadily by 15% to 20% for a number of years.
“The big thing with foodservice is that it’s very price-sensitive and that’s why it’s so heavily dominated on the conventional side,” he said. “Organic is still undersupplied relative to total demand, so it keeps the price point up, which is good from the farming perspective because it’s sustainable. And I think it’s just a matter of time that the foodservice sector sees the benefits to organic.”
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