New salad launches two industries

Returning to complete her degree in Berkeley, Alice Waters continued to dream of establishing a place to eat where fresh and local American products could be used to express French cuisine.  By ferreting out the sparse number of existing local growers in the Bay Area and encouraging others to join her network of fresh food providers, Alice gradually established sources she could trust.

Ten years after opening Chez Panisse, Alice discovered Laura Chenel’s operation in Santa Rosa and put in a standing order of fifty pounds of goat cheese a week.  Chez Panisse baked these pungent rounds, then served them on a bed of baby greens.  This remarkable salad course led not only to a new understanding of the relationship between quality, local production, and taste.  It also launched two industries: American-produced French-style goat cheese and mixed baby greens now commonly called spring mix. 

In 2006, Laura Chenel sold over two million pounds of her goat cheese.  Meanwhile, Earthbound Farm, based in the Salinas Valley, has ridden the spring mix market to ever-higher levels of sales.  Begun in the early 1980s by two transplanted New Yorkers, Drew and Myra Goodman, Earthbound Farms invented an industry: triple washed and bagged salad mixes.  The operation began on 2.5 acres, rented land near Carmel California.  

In 2013, Earthbound Farms grew lettuces and other vegetables on 53,000 acres of certified organic farmland.  With annual sales of $460 million, Earthbound remains the largest grower of organic produce in the United States.  Sixty-five percent of sales come from packaged salad greens.