The Nunes Co. is recalling co-founder Tom Nunes for his leadership and innovation in the produce industry. Nunes, 95, died Aug. 5 in Carmel Valley, Calif., the company said in a news release.
Nunes, who began his farming career over 70 years ago in the Salinas Valley, started from a young age riding a tractor with his father and working with him in the field. He would go on to launch two grower-shippers and garner produce industry awards and honors.
Though farming was not Nunes’ first choice of a career after graduating Stanford University with a degree in economics, he had a wife and young son to support and later went to work with his father under the name of T. Nunes & Son, farming 400 acres of vegetables for various shippers while every night scouring the newspaper for something else to do.
But it would be in the produce industry where he would ultimately ply his work ethic, leadership and innovation.
Venturing into produce
After farming for several years, Nunes was approached in 1955 by his friend, Bill “Chopper” Brown, about starting a new company growing, harvesting and shipping iceberg lettuce. Nunes and five other partners each invested $5,000 and grew 400 acres of iceberg lettuce for their new company, Growers Exchange Inc.
The group lost their entire investment the first year, however, with a loan from Bruce Church, the company survived the second year and enjoyed success with Nunes as president from 1955-1965, according to the release. Growers Exchange eventually grew and shipped out of Salinas, El Centro, Yuma, Phoenix, Aguila and Alamosa.
Brotherly bond
It was at Growers Exchange that Nunes and his brother, Bob, began a lifelong partnership.
Bob Nunes, who worked in sales for Kavanaugh Distributing Co., bought into the Growers Exchange and took over sales and marketing when the person responsible for the department retired.
The brothers worked six years together at Growers Exchange before leaving in 1966 to form Nunes Bros. of California Inc., an integrated grower-shipper of fresh vegetables. Nunes Bros. pioneered film-wrapped lettuce and used this to launch a joint promotion offering 25 cents off Lawry’s Seasoned Salt on the wrapper of the Nunes Bros. lettuce, according to the release.
The Salinas Valley Produce Industry recognized Nunes’ leadership and elected him to the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California’s board of directors, where he served as chairman during the 1967-68 association year.
A new chapter
The Nunes brothers developed a documentary of their company during the 1968 United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association convention. Management from United Fruit Co. (Chiquita) viewed it and began courting the brothers with intention to buy Nunes Bros. Although initially turning down the offer from United Fruit, the brothers eventually accepted, along with four other Salinas vegetable grower-shippers. The newly formed company, Interharvest, became one of the nation’s largest produce operations with Tom Nunes and Bob Nunes at the helm.
Tom Nunes had a hiatus from the produce industry when brothers later resigned, triggering a five-year noncompetition agreement. (Never one to stay still, Tom Nunes studied real estate and landed a cameo role in the Oscar-winning production of The Godfather, Part II, according to the release.)
When the noncompetition period ended, however, the produce industry again beckoned. The brothers started The Nunes Co. Inc. in 1976, which eventually became an integrated grower-shipper — including shipping, cooling, growing and harvesting operations.
“We had a great advantage of building a company and then selling it and getting to start over,” Tom Nunes once said, according to the company. “It allowed us to look at what we did right and look at what we did wrong and build a better company.”
Tom Nunes thought people were the firm’s most important asset, and the mutual loyalty and respect was evident as most of the top employees from Nunes Bros. returned to work with the brothers at The Nunes Co., the release said.
A focus on family
Despite all his honors and achievements, the company said Nunes would have said his greatest achievement and pleasure came from his family, including his three sons, daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Nunes, also known as T3, family was key to the stability and quality produced by the company. With his first son, Tom (T4), in sales, David in growing and land base, Jimmy in farming and Bob Jr. (Bob Nunes’ son) on the cooling and harvesting side, they have been instrumental in growing the company from a modest 1,200 acres to over 20,000 acres in California, Arizona and Nevada, the release said.
The core business of the company was the population-heavy Northeast corridor, where the Foxy brand became known for quality, the company said. By 1989, as a result of consistent quality and industry-leading awareness, including a marketing campaign with Brooke Shields and other celebrities, the brand had become recognized globally.
Value-added operations, organic production and strawberries extended the reach of the brand in the ensuing years.
In the late 1990s, the Tom Nunes and Bob Nunes started to turn over control to the next generation — Tom (T4), David, Jimmy and Bob Jr. — as Tom M. Nunes (T5) also began to learn the business.
The elder Nunes brothers were recognized by the National Steinbeck Center for their leadership and innovation with induction into the Valley of the World Hall of Fame in 2010, and they were honored with the E.E. “Gene” Harden Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California in 2017.
Then in 2018, Tom M. Nunes, representing the third generation of the Nunes family, became company president, carrying on the traditions and culture created by his grandfather and and maintained by his father. He said his grandfather once said trust was the key to life.
“Grandpa lived that, and you can see it in the loyalty of employees returning to The Nunes Co. after the five-year hiatus, the growers’ willingness to accept a structure built on trust in the company, the many long-term employees and the customers who trusted that the right high-quality product would be there every time,” Tom M. Nunes said in the release. “Our family lost our pillar, and the industry lost an important and influential leader.”
