Known for Artichokes, Grower is Innovative in Leafy Greens, Too
Castroville, Calif., is called the Artichoke Capital of the World, so it’s only natural that the biggest name in artichokes, Ocean Mist Farms, would call Castroville home.
But in the eight decades that Ocean Mist has been growing and shipping artichokes, the company has expanded its produce offerings, which now include fresh-cut leafy greens.
The Salinas Valley, where Castroville is located and much of Ocean Mist’s leafy greens come from, was hit hard by the E. coli outbreak in September 2006 that killed three and sickened hundreds nationwide – referred to as “9/14” in the valley because the impact has been similar to the 9/11 tragedy.
As a direct result of the outbreak, food safety drives many decisions when it comes to California agriculture. Ocean Mist is no different, but the company has taken its commitment to food safety and combined it with a commitment to the environment. In September, a new position was created that’s dedicated to environmental stewardship – and Afreen Malik, the manager of food safety, filled the position.
“Afreen understands the importance of these two functions and is in a unique position to direct our environmental initiatives across the company,” said Joe Pezzini, vice president of operations for Ocean Mist. “As farmers, we understand the importance of caring for the land and the footprint we leave behind.”
Pezzini said Ocean Mist has practiced environmental stewardship for a while, but is committing to it for the long run with the new position. At the corporate headquarters and distribution center, all the lights are energy efficient and cooling fans, electronic forklifts and the cardboard recycling program conserve energy and promote sustainability. In the fields, 90 percent of the crops are irrigated with drip irrigation to conserve water and spoon-feed the correct amount of fertilizer. An integrated pest management program reduces the amount of pesticides used, and all of the company’s artichokes are harvested organically – by hand.
Product Mix
Ocean Mist Farms has been around since 1924 but has only been known by its current name since 1995. Before that, it was the California Artichoke & Vegetable Growers Corporation, a grower of artichokes and Brussels sprouts in Castroville.
The company now grows, processes and ships a wide range of vegetables including artichokes, broccoli bunches and crowns, Brussels sprouts, cardone, cauliflower, celery, fava beans, fennel, green onions, iceberg lettuce, green leaf, red leaf and butter lettuce, broccoli rabe, romaine lettuce and bunched and bagged spinach.
For a year-round supply, Ocean Mist looks to Castroville, Oxnard and Coachella for artichokes. Other vegetables come from Castroville, Huron, Oxnard, Coachella and the Imperial Valley in California, and also Yuma, Ariz., and Mexico.
Most of Ocean Mist’s retail products wouldn’t be considered “fresh cut,” but the company has expanded its product mix to include fresh-cut leafy greens – primarily for foodservice customers. The company’s Castroville headquarters also is home to its fresh-cut processing, which consists of one processing line.
To promote its products – both the fresh artichokes and fresh-cut leafy greens – Ocean Mist recruited Tony Baker, executive chef of the Monterey, Calif., Montrio Bistro. Baker has found innovative ways to incorporate artichokes into his entrees, and the bistro includes a spinach salad made of Ocean Mist’s fresh-cut spinach.
Baker said it wasn’t hard getting customers to eat spinach again following the September 2006 E. coli outbreak. Once it was back on the menu, the wait staff didn’t mention the incident, and he didn’t have customers ask about the safety of the product.
Food Safety
Anyone growing leafy greens in the Salinas Valley – or in California – is acutely aware of the effect contamination can have on a business, or an entire industry. For that reason, growers banded together to form the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement earlier this year. The program is administered by the California Department of Food and Agriculture and managed by a board of industry members. Pezzini, Ocean Mist’s vice president of operations, serves as chair of the board of directors for the marketing agreement.
The signatories of the agreement follow a set of guidelines that have been developed in accordance with the most recent and reliable research. Audits, which began in July, are a part of the agreement to monitor and ensure that everyone is following the safety guidelines. Anyone in the leafy greens supply chain now recognizes that one incident can pull down an entire industry, so it’s in everyone’s interest to work together.
In August, a Salinas Valley processor recalled fresh-cut bagged spinach after salmonella was detected. This was the first test of the leafy greens board, which took the opportunity to reinforce its goals and restore confidence in California agriculture.
“The success of our industry begins and ends with our commitment to public health,” Pezzini said. “Our livelihood depends on it, and we remain committed to constant innovation in the way we grow, process and ship our products. I want to reassure consumers that we are 100 percent committed to ensuring a safe and healthy eating experience every bite, every time.”
The leafy greens matrices cover pre-harvest through processing, but the steps that growers and handlers take are dependent on their self-audits. Every field goes through a risk assessment before planting. For example, if animal incursions were common, a grower would need to fence the field, but if there is no evidence of animals crossing a field could remain unfenced. A field’s previous use and the uses of adjacent fields also are important points in the pre-planting assessment.
Ocean Mist rigorously follows its food safety practices that cover the harvest, handling and human components. On the worker end, the most important tools at Ocean Mist’s disposal are cleanliness, hygiene and education. In the field, workers are trained to harvest only leaves that are of the best quality – walking through a field after a hand harvest, one will see whole sections unharvested because they didn’t meet the company’s quality level.
Head and hand covering is required at all times, and portable bathroom facilities – a booming business in the Salinas Valley – have hand washing stations as well as sanitizing dips for the workers’ tools.
Ocean Mist has taken an innovative approach to preventing contamination in the field: The harvest has been taken off the ground. That’s been done by developing moveable harvest platforms that allow the cut spinach to be put directly into the retail carton, reducing the chance that anything in the field will be spread by the spinach bunches or the cartons. The machinery was designed and built especially for Ocean Mist, but in the post-9/14 Salinas Valley, many companies are finding innovative approaches to reducing the possibility of contamination.
Spinach bound for fresh-cut processing isn’t harvested by hand, but it does come from the same fields and is monitored as closely as retail bunches. The spinach for fresh-cut processing is harvested with a large mower that cuts an entire 4-foot row at once and dumps the spinach into reusable plastic containers. The machine can cover more ground faster than hand harvesting, which is necessary to make money with the extra inputs needed for processing.
“Any less than 10,000 pounds an acre and we’re losing money,” said Art Barrientos, vice president of harvest operations for Ocean Mist.
The time both the processing RPCs and the retail boxes sit in the field has been reduced for food safety and quality reasons. Within four hours of harvest, the core temperature of the spinach has been reduced and it’s sitting in a cooler. Typically, fresh spinach is in the coolers in about one hour, Art said. And those boxes and crates the spinach is put in? They’re stored at the plant until they’re needed in the field.
The core temperature of freshly harvested spinach is taken in the field, and then lowered by putting the lot into one of three vacuum coolers at the Ocean Mist facility in Castroville. It takes 25 minutes to 40 minutes for the core temperature to fall to 34º F to 36º F, depending on the core temperature that was measured in the field.
Ocean Mist is serious about security at its storage and processing facility. The plant is surrounded by a solid wall – not only for security, but also to prevent debris from blowing in from some of the surrounding fields. Security cameras monitor the area, and whenever a truck enters the facility, it is weighed and the pallet tags are checked. It can then proceed to the unloading area and the produce is sent to the vacuum coolers.
When dealing with as many products and as much volume as Ocean Mist does, contingency plans are important. In the event of a power failure, the distribution center in Castroville has a system of generators that keep the computers online and the doors functioning. The coolers won’t operate, but if the doors aren’t opened, the temperature won’t rise above 40º F for about 24 hours.
All of Ocean Mist’s guidelines and facilities are designed to ensure customers get the best product, whether they’re buying fresh artichokes or eating fresh-cut leafy greens. But with so many aspects to monitor, it’s possible to get bogged down in the details. That’s why the simplest approach is the best, such as using elevated platforms during harvest.
“The simpler you can keep it, the more efficient you can be,” Barrientos said.
