Editors note: This article originally appeared in the July 17, 2006, issue of The Packer, when Christopher Ranch was celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Don Christopher says he’s looked forward to Mondays for his entire life -- he gets to go to work.
“Growing and selling garlic was just exciting to me,” he said.
When he talks about Christopher Ranch LLC, Gilroy, Calif., the business he founded in 1956, he uses the word “love” a lot. He loves going to work, growing garlic and expanding his family-owned business.
It’s that kind of dedication -- and willingness to accept change and innovate -- that has helped his grower-shipper business succeed through 50 years.
The ranch, one of a handful of garlic grower-shippers in California, started with 130 acres of lima beans, sugar beets and garlic.
In 1956, Christopher’s father lent him and his brother, Art, $75,000 to help purchase the 130-acre ranch. Art Christopher was a partner, but he was not involved in the ranch’s operations, Don Christopher said.
Don Christopher planted garlic on 10 of the 130 acres during the first year.
The ranch now grows garlic on about 3,000 acres in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Gilroy and San Juan Bautista areas, said Patsy Ross, vice president of marketing. It offers fresh garlic year-round.
Christopher Ranch, which has 300 year-round employees, packs and ships about 60 million pounds of garlic annually, Ross said. Most of it is fresh-packed in bulb form.
Retailers buy about 4 million pounds of the ranch’s fresh garlic each month. Foodservice and some industrial and retail businesses purchase another 2 million pounds of peeled garlic each month, Ross said.
During its heyday in the early 1990s, the company grew garlic on 5,000 acres and shipped 100 million pounds, Ross said.
The company also sources fresh garlic from Mexico, China, Argentina and Chile.
Christopher Ranch sells fresh organic garlic, bell peppers, pearl onions, shallots and cherries, Ross said. It also offers sun-dried tomatoes, dried chili peppers, jarred garlic and other products such as pesto and pickled garlic.
Challenges
Bill Christopher, the managing partner of Christopher Ranch for the past two years, said his father’s passion for the business and his willingness to experiment with processes and products, such as chopped and minced garlic, allowed Christopher Ranch to thrive.
During the early years, the ranch experimented with growing lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and other crops before settling on garlic as its main product, Don Christopher said.
Don Christopher also was among the first garlic growers to experiment with cold storage. He said the company ruined a lot of garlic before it got the processes right. The ranch also helped establish drip irrigation methods in Santa Clara Valley, Calif., Don Christopher said.
Don Christopher took another risk when he opened a division in France about 15 years ago.
At the time, Don Christopher was sure that the company would be successful in Europe. After all, he said, the staff had built its own equipment that could peel garlic “just a little bit better than anyone else’s,” and garlic suppliers in Europe were still peeling by hand.
He said it cost the Europeans about $7 in labor to peel a pound of garlic by hand at that time. His machines could do it for closer to 50 cents a pound.
He hadn’t counted on the French trucking companies going on strike or the French government classifying his company as a cannery, which forced the company to double its wages, Don Christopher said.
Maintaining operations became difficult and the European market was not good enough to keep the division going. After five years, he shut it down.
Staying in the garlic business in California has been difficult for grower-shippers, too. After Chinese garlic entered the U.S. market, Christopher Ranch had to cut back by about 10% each year for several years, Bill Christopher said.
Several California garlic shippers went out of business because of the competition. Don Christopher estimated that there were 11 major shippers about 15 years ago, whereas now there are less than five.
China continues to be the world’s major garlic producer, but its prices are higher this year due in part to higher labor, transportation and energy costs.
Now Christopher Ranch buys Chinese garlic, and it has gradually cut its production to 50% to 60% of what it was 10 years ago.
Bill Christopher said the company has to import Chinese garlic because customers demand it. If he didn’t sell it, he said he would lose business.
Don Christopher said he thinks California garlic will always be in demand, despite lower-priced imports.
“I think we have to have California product,” he said. “It tastes better.”
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