THE FRESNO BEE – It’s easy to underestimate the scope of what Spice World does in Central California, until you’re standing off a dirt road outside Bakersfield, watching a pair of machine harvesters pull through a field of garlic stretching 75 acres toward the rolling hills on the horizon.
“That’s the Grapevine,” says Juan Lopez, president of Field Operations for the national garlic producer, which has operated across the central San Joaquin Valley since the mid-1990s.
The machines hum along, pulling up rows of unearthed garlic, which workers sort and pass through on a conveyor belt into large white bins. Another crew follows with buckets, to clear any bulbs not captured by the harvesters. The full bins get covered and stacked alongside the road, where they will spend the next few days curing in the heat before being shipped to Spice World’s processing facility in Coalinga, about 100 miles to the north in western Fresno County.
While Gilroy — a town 120 miles north of Spice World’s Coalinga operation — has the reputation for garlic, the majority of the growth and production happens in California’s Central Valley and Fresno County specifically.
That makes it the perfect home for the 75-year-old company, which is one of the largest supermarket suppliers in the country and “America’s Favorite Garlic,” per its branding.
With more than two decades of experience in public relations and journalism, Mike is a strategic communications leader who focuses on media relations and reputation management.