In the next year or two Babé Farms will be breaking ground on a new facility, according to Jeff Lundberg, CEO and owner.

“With this state-of-the-art facility, we aim to streamline our operations, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness while simultaneously focusing on improving product shelf-life,” said Matt Hiltner, marketing coordinator for the Santa Maria, CA-based company, adding that more details on the venture will be released soon.

The news comes following a better-than-expected 2023, which was a “huge” year for Babé Farms.

“The momentum has carried into 2024,” Hiltner said. “As we approach spring, historically a busy month for us, we feel poised for another successful season and hope for an equally rewarding 2024.”

The company was founded in 1986 in the Santa Maria Valley and continues to farm on the same land.

“While we have grown a lot over the last 38 years, the company remains family-owned and operated by the Lundbergs — one of the original founding families,” Hiltner said. “Many of our employees — office and field staff — have worked for the company for 20-30 years. Keeping this culture is something that is of great importance to the Lundberg family and it won’t be changing anytime soon.”

Babé Farms grows, packs and ships more than 70 varieties of colorful, specialty vegetables, but it doesn’t stop there. The team is constantly trialing new varieties and keeping up with what produce is on trend in the culinary world in an effort to better serve its customers.

“The goal is to be a year-round one-stop-shop for all things, specialty vegetables,” Hiltner said.

This year, the quality is looking pretty good across the board on most items, including colorful root vegetables, specialty greens and baby head lettuces, despite the recent rains.

“On trend now are a couple of new products that we recently introduced to our line of luxury leafy greens,” Hiltner said.

There’s Baby Butter Cakes, petite heads of butter lettuce which get their name from their buttery flavor and cake-like shape.

“They are soft and luscious with ribboning leaves that hold onto all types of dressing,” Hiltner said. “Baby Butter Cakes contain three times more leaves than an average butterhead lettuce. All in uniform shape and size. Available in both green and red, they are great for all types of salad, sandwiches, burgers, poké and more.”

Then there’s Platinum Blonde Frisée, a popular brand which now comes in a chef-ready, pre-washed and ready-to-eat bagged salad version, saving time and labor.

“So far, these unique new items have generated a lot of excitement with our customers, and we hope to solidify them as permanent fixtures in our product line,” Hiltner said.

Babé Farms currently shares a warehouse and processing facility with fellow Santa Maria grower-shipper, Gold Coast Packing. Babé Farms and Gold Coast have many mutual customers and this arrangement allows them to load their specialty items from Babé and their value-added items from GCP all at one convenient location.

The customer base for Babé Farms largely consists of foodservice distributors with a sprinkling of select, high-end retailers as well.

“With our line of specialty vegetables, we find this is the right balance for us,” Hiltner said. “The best way to forge strong partnerships with customers is open communication. In an age where orders are mostly placed via email, our sales team makes it a point to get on the phone with customers frequently to help nurture those personal relationships and eliminate any miscommunication that can sometimes arise in email chains.”