For many produce companies, being “integrated” means being involved in the growing, packing and marketing of a product. At Mulholland Citrus in Orange Cove, CA, integration goes a couple of steps further, as Mulholland is, among other things, a citrus tree nursery.

Not only does the company propagate trees; it sells them to other growers in addition to planting them on its own ranches.

The Mulholland family, who owns the company, has been growing citrus in California for four generations, said Heather Mulholland, whose official title is chief financial officer but whose responsibilities are much broader than the title indicates, as is often true in family owned and operated companies.

“I am the fourth generation growing citrus,” she said. “My sister and I are both growers now. It was my great-grandfather [Perry Mulholland] who first started growing citrus in Southern California. Then my grandfather [Richard Mulholland] and grandmother came to Orange Cove in 1957 and started growing citrus on the same home ranch that we are on now. Then my dad [Tom Mulholland] started his first nursery in a field” more than 30 years ago “and then later developed the nursery as it is today.” It is “a great tradition of growing citrus.”

Mulholland Citrus today specializes in easy-peel Mandarins, in particular Clementines, Satsumas and W. Murcotts, she said. It is “a fully integrated nursery, grower, packer, shipper [and] marketer” and also operates an insectary to produce beneficial insects to control citrus pests.

The company first introduced the “Delite” brand some 18 years ago. The artwork for the brand was redesigned and “refreshed” this year, she said.

Mulholland Citrus was “the first to propagate, grow and market the W. Murcott variety” in the early 1990s, Mulholland said. “My dad first came across the variety in Morocco, and when it came back to the University of California he was the first to propagate and grow it here and begin to market it. So he really discovered that.” It is “the best variety in the world, according to him, and he saw potential in it and started growing in the greenhouses and then started planting it.”

“I think the strength of the company is the integration,” said Archie Williams, vice president of sales and marketing, who joined the company in April. With more than 30 years in the produce industry, Williams started out in retail and was most recently with Sun Pacific. “I really like the company,” he said of his new employer. “I like the family business atmosphere. It is very good. We can all sit and discuss the issues and what we are trying to accomplish and implement.”

Williams said that the actual packing of Mulholland Citrus’s fruit takes place at Wawona Packing, a tree fruit grower and packer in nearby Cutler, CA. “We have a partnership with Wawona,” he said. Tom Mulholland and Wawona’s President Brent Smittcamp “go back six or seven years, and they have a very good partnership. It works out very nicely, because it creates a situation where we are able to use the packingshed year-round.”

That is “a real strength,” he added, “because Tom really knows varietals and timing, so we really build our product on quality.” In the family atmosphere, he said, “we have very good control of what goes on in the field as well as what goes on in the packingshed, therefore giving a good product to other end user.”

The company has the capability of doing innovative packaging, and has just introduced a three-pack sleeve called “Sweet Delite,” Williams said. “That is geared more toward foodservice and lunchbox type business.”

The entire packing line was fully revamped this year, Williams added. Among other things, “we have added new inline weighers” to the line, to help with the packaging, “and we have PTI labeling available throughout the line. So we are able to provide even the most current demands” from customers for whatever type of labeling they may need.

Mulholland Citrus “has grown substantially over the last 10 years of development” and is a key player in “the very quickly growing Mandarin portion of the citrus category,” Williams said. “We believe that citrus sales are being driven by the growth of the Mandarin,” which is seeing double-digit annual increases in consumption, compared to single-digit increases in Navels.

“We feel very strongly that our varietals of Clementine and Murcott give us very good strength to serve customers’ needs across the entire season,” he added. “We typically have very good supplies into early May,” which is a little later than some other domestic suppliers.

Director of Sales at Mulholland is Fred Berry, who has been with the company for “a number of years,” Williams said. New on the sales team is Aaron Gomez, who “just recently joined us” and will be “dealing with FoodLink and iTrade and doing some coordination of the programs.” He was previously with the Center for International Trade Development in Fresno, CA.

Jennifer Estrada has recently joined the company as horticulturist and pest control advisor. “She came to us from Paramount,” Mulholland said. “We are really excited to have her here,” particularly in light of the encroachment of the Asian citrus psyllid into the Central Valley.