|
Avocado powerhouse Calavo Growers, Inc. President-CEO Lee Cole accepted the Business of the Year Award at the annual Santa Paula Chamber of Commerce's recognition luncheon, held Wednesday at Casa del Mexicano. |
Calavo Growers: Chamber Business of the Year loyal to Santa Paula
February 26, 2016
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Santa Paula is where the headquarters of global agribusiness Calavo Growers Inc. moved to and Santa Paula is where it will stay according to President-CEO Lee Cole who Wednesday accepted the Business of the Year Award from the Chamber of Commerce.
The celebration was held at Casa del Mexicano and featured Mayor Martin Hernandez’s State of the City address. Council members Ginger Gherardi, John Procter and Jim Tovias also attended the awards luncheon, as did Vice Mayor Jenny Crosswhite and Assemblyman Das Williams. Xavier “Big X” Montes provided the musical entertainment and members of SPHS Future Farmers of America paid close attention to the guests.
Also honored were Debbie and Don Johnson, Citizens of the Year; Tom Lugo, Sam Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award; and Nonprofit of the Year Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Clara Valley. The Community Service Award was presented to Santa Paula Memorial Hospital, the local campus of the Ventura County Medical Center.
Emcee John Chamberlain welcomed the sold-out crowd weaving humor into the presentations and introductions including Chamber Board Chairman Zahid Shah, whom Chamberlain noted is “A self-made guy...”
“On behalf of the chamber,” said Shah, “I welcome you today as friends that we are honored to have here,” demonstrating strong support of the chamber and the community.
Said Chamberlain, “People flew in from all over the earth to be here,” in Santa Paula, the internationally recognized center of “commerce, culture and mass media.”
When it comes to commerce Chamberlain’s statement was no exaggeration.
He said Calavo is a “publicly traded, diverse” corporation that packed 35 percent of the state’s avocado crop, “nearly double” the market share of its closest competitor.
The company handles approximately 200 million pounds of avocadoes each year.
The avocado industry has a long history: turning a delicious but odd-shaped fruit into a household favorite wasn’t in the plan when a group of grower-hobbyists banded together in 1924 to form the California Avocado Growers Exchange. And two more years would pass before Rudolph Hass of La Habra, California, would plant the state’s first Hass avocado tree.
At the time, avocado growers had no quality standards, no distribution channels, and only one facility, a packinghouse in Vernon, California. During that first year, the Growers Exchange packed 18,000 pounds of avocados from that packinghouse and, in doing so, launched an industry.
Though the Vernon packinghouse has long since closed, the company that sprang from that Growers’ Exchange — Calavo Growers, Inc. — is still going strong some 81 years later.
Three modern packinghouses - strategically located in Santa Paula and Temecula, California, and Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico - teem with productivity and thrive on volume. Calavo is now headquartered in Santa Paula, and employs more than 500 people.
But noted Chamberlain, the community is also the business of Calavo and especially of Lee Cole who has generously donated to the Santa Paula Art Museum — the Jeanette Cole Art Center is named for his late wife, an art lover and museum docent — and Ventura County Museum/Agricultural Museum, among others.
Cole thanked the chamber for the award and noted, “When we first moved the headquarters to Santa Paula in 2004,” Calavo stock was $10 a share and the market was about $140 million.
“Our stock today is $54 dollars,” and avocadoes are a $1 billion business.
“We’re very happy to be in Santa Paula,” said Cole.
“I love Santa Paula, am from Santa Paula and if I have anything to say about it — and I do — Calavo’s headquarters will always be in Santa Paula!”
