Franz De Klotz joins sales at Peter Rabbit Farms

Franz De Klotz has joined the sales staff at Peter Rabbit Farms, Coachella, Calif.

De Klotz most recently was at Richard Bagdasarian Inc., which hired him 20 years ago to start its vegetable division, Pasha Marketing LLC; he was vice president of marketing for both companies.

At Peter Rabbit, he will be teaming with Johnston Farms, Bakersfield, Calif., another fourth-generation grower-shipper, for bell peppers and leaf lettuce from October through March, and bell peppers from April to July, according to a news release.

Peter Rabbit CEO John Powell Jr. has known De Klotz since the early 1980s; they have served on the Coachella Valley Water District board of directors, where De Klotz was vice president of the board.

“Franz is a results-driven produce veteran that has always handled himself responsibly and professionally,” Powell said in the release. “We look forward to him working with John Burton, Ed Lopez and Garret Powell on our staff to provide the finest fresh vegetables from the Coachella Valley and from Johnston Farms in the Southern San Joaquin Valley.”

De Klotz is a director of Western Growers for the Coachella Valley.

Dennis Johnston said he has worked with De Klotz, who sold the company's pepper for 20 years.

“We welcome the association he has created with Peter Rabbit Farms and our company,”  Johnston said in the release. “There is already an established sense of familiarity as members of both families served together on the board of directors at Western Growers Association.”