The Nunes Co. highlights sustainability, solar projects

Sustainability has become a topic at the forefront of the agriculture industry.

With a growing number of consumers looking to make more eco-conscious purchases, it is the job of the grower to meet those requests.

“It’s really important that we listen to our customers, and that we meet their needs by minimizing the impact as best we can. Science and technology are a huge part of our industry that we integrate into our farming practices daily — from GPS, petal analysis, soil testing and low flow drip tape, we are looking at every aspect of what we do on the production side, to try to do more with less. Through our efforts, we’ve learned how to make things as sustainable as possible, and that’s ultimately the goal,” said Tom Nunes (T5), President of the Nunes Co.

While The Nunes Company has been a leader in sustainable farming practices, they’ve now expanded their efforts to include solar. Utilizing two acres of their cooling and loading facility in the San Joaquin Valley, The Nunes Company set up 1,350 solar panels to aid in their sustainability efforts. These solar panels allow their Western Distribution Center to be fully sustainable by reducing CO2 emissions by 77,000 pounds and generating 1,071,000 kWh in electricity annually.

“The high demand period in the San Joaquin Valley is during the winter and summer months when we do not operate there, so the communities that are serviced by our solar panels are receiving more benefit from our solar investment than we do,” said Mark Crossgrove, senior vice president of sales and marketing for The Nunes Company.

Through these efforts, and their future sustainability efforts, The Nunes Company will continue to be an industry leader throughout their growing regions.