Grimmway Farms is the largest grower, producer, and shipper of

carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in colour, though heirloom variants including purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild ...

s in the world. It is headquartered in

Bakersfield, California Bakersfield is a city in and the county seat of Kern County, California, United States. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, which is located in the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's population as of th ...

, and was family owned and operated for more than 40 years until it was sold to a private equity firm in 2020 for an undisclosed price. Grimmway’s divisions include Grimmway Farms, Cal-Organic Farms, Bunny-Luv, and Bunny-Luv Organic. Its operations are in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Oregon, and Washington. The company has been recognized for popularizing the baby-cut carrot.

History

Grimmway Farms was established in the mid-1960s when brothers Rodney Grimm and Robert Grimm started farming five acres of

sweet corn Sweet corn (''Zea mays'' convar. ''saccharata'' var. ''rugosa''), also called sweetcorn, sugar corn and pole corn, is a variety of maize grown for human consumption with a high sugar content. Sweet corn is the result of a naturally occurring rec ...

on their grandfather's chicken farm in

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, United States, part of the Greater Los Angeles area. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orang ...

. Through the years, they added other crops, which they sold alongside the corn in small family-run roadside produce stands. In the early 1980s, after the concept of baby carrots was successfully test-marketed by another company in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, the Grimm brothers relocated to

Kern County Kern County is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield, California, Bakersfield. Kern County compris ...

and began processing baby carrots. By 2002, the company was able to process millions of pounds of baby carrots a day. In 1991, Grimmway Farms began expanding into different areas of agriculture with the acquisition of Belridge Farms (citrus). The expansion continued with the acquisition of Mike Yurosek & Sons, another carrot processing company, in the early 1990s. In 1998, company president Rodney Grimm died of cancer at the age of 51. Robert Grimm then took over as company president. During his tenure, Grimmway Farms began buying other companies. By 2000, it had reportedly grown into a $350-million operation with five plants in the United States, and products shipping to more than 20 countries. In 2001, Grimmway Farms purchased King Pak Farms, a potato growing, packing, and shipping operation in Edison, California. On March 17, 2006, Robert Grimm died of a heart attack. He had served on the association's board since 1988. Following Robert Grimm's death, Jeff Meger, the Grimm's nephew and company vice president, took over as president of Grimmway Farms. In 2016, he was replaced by Jeff Huckaby. The sons of founders Rod and Bob Grimm work for the company as well. Brandon Grimm, son of Bob Grimm, started at Grimmway in 2006 and is currently the General Manager of Organic Operations. They agreed to buy

Oxnard Oxnard () is a city in Ventura County in the U.S. state of California, United States. On California's Central Coast (California), Central Coast, it is the most populous city in Ventura County and the List of largest California cities by populati ...

based, San Miguel Produce, in 2024.

Products

Grimmway Farms handles 10 million pounds of carrots a day and grows over 40,000 acres of carrots. Other Grimmway products include carrot juice concentrate and carrot juice based products used in soup bases, vegetable blends, condiment formulation, and flavor additives. Grimmway’s processed carrots are kosher certified (when applicable). Cal-Organic Farms, Grimmway Farms’ organic division, produces sixty-five year-round crops including: carrots, leeks, broccoli, and lettuce. Organic products are certified through CCOF, a recognized third-party approved by the USDA. In 2024, a Grimmway carrot farm in

New Cuyama, California New Cuyama (Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''Kuyam'', meaning "Clam") is a census-designated place in the Cuyama Valley, Santa Barbara County, California. It was named after the Chumash people, Chumash word for "clams", most likely due to the mill ...

, was linked to a multistate outbreak of ''

E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' ( )Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escherichia'' that is commonly foun ...

'', causing the

Centers for Disease Control The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and is headquartered in Atlanta, ...

to recall Grimmway carrots from many stores.

References

{{Reflist Farms in California Companies based in Kern County, California Agriculture companies of the United States Food manufacturers of the United States