4Earth Farms adds organic items, looks to expand sales

Los Angeles-based 4Earth Farms has launched several new organic items in the past few months, including broccoli and cauliflower florets, halved and shaved Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower rice.

“These new stock-keeping units have been added to our existing portfolio of organic products, giving us a full retail line of washed and ready-to-prepare products,” said Mark Munger, vice president of marketing.

Close to 50% of 4Earth Farms sales are organic items, Munger said.

“Our largest organic items are Brussels sprouts, green beans, snap peas, zucchini, mini cucumbers and mini sweet peppers,” he said. “However, we also grow and distribute approximately 50 other organic produce items.”

The company farms in a variety of regions, including California, Baja and Western Mexico, and Munger said the geographic diversification of its organic growing program helps ensure consistent year-round organic supply.

The marketer’s organic program has been growing by about 8% to 10% per year, which Munger said is consistent with 4Earth Farms’ last three years of growth.

“Demand for our organic produce continues to grow and we align our growing programs with our customer demand forecasting,” he said.

Challenges

Supply chain challenges are common to all growers, and organic growers can face added pressures because there are less options for substitutions of materials, Munger said. “I don’t think production will be held back, but growers have to plan farther ahead and pay more for materials.”

Longer term, the biggest threats to expanded organic demand include supply interruptions, global warming's impact on production regions and the challenge of ensuring organic integrity.

4Earth Farms is facing the challenge of supply consistency by investing in geographic diversity, Munger said.

“Our brand, in its name, helps communicate our link and commitment to sustainability,” he said. “A key component of our tagline ‘People, Produce, Planet’ is ‘planet.’ It's one of our pillars of success, and we have a very clearly defined sustainability strategy with key goals.”

Marketing push

4Earth Farms recently launched a social marketing program allowing the company to share field information, recipes and crop updates, Munger said. “While this is primarily consumer-focused, we have been sharing field videos and crop updates from our social media campaign with our customers to connect them with our growing and processing programs,” he said. 

Munger said the best way retailers can effectively promote organic produce is by keeping displays consistently stocked. 

“Consistently stocked displays help set customer expectations and communicate a store’s commitment to an organic program,” he said. “We also recommend including one to two organic produce items in weekly ads to create awareness and excitement.”

Raising consumer awareness of organic produce also can be accomplished with collaboration between retailers and growers to tell the farm/organic story, he said.