“One of the things I think really sets us apart is we have control over the garlic all the way from seed through distribution,” said Patsy Ross, vice president of marketing for Christopher Ranch LLC in Gilroy, CA, in an interview with The Produce News July 22.

That distinction contrasts Christopher Ranch garlic particularly with imported product, according to Ross. “We know where the garlic has been and where it is going. I don’t think that can be said of imports.”

One of Christopher Ranch’s main garlic varieties, Monviso, “was originally from the Piedmont region of Italy, and we have had control over it for 50 years,” she continued.

Christopher Ranch debuted a new label for the Monviso garlic in August 2011. On that occasion, the company issued a press release stating, “Over 50 years ago, Don Christopher, the company founder, came upon the most flavorful variety of garlic he had ever tasted. As its origins were in the Piedmont area of Italy, he christened the variety Monviso for the region’s peaks and immediately set about nurturing the seed on his ranch in California’s Santa Clara Valley. Five decades later, Christopher Ranch proudly continues to cultivate and harvest the Monviso varietal exclusively, choosing to deliver garlic of exceptional flavor rather than plant higher yielding, inferior tasting varieties. In fact, Christopher Ranch Monviso garlic is the only heirloom garlic commercially grown in the U.S. today.”

Monviso garlic “has been doing very well” and the label “has been very well received in the market,” said President Bill Christopher July 1. The variety’s flavor profile is “at the highest Brix level, so people are able to use less of it and still get the high level of allicin. It is something we are very proud of — the consistent quality that you are always going to get with it.”

As part of the company’s seed-to-distribution control of the product, “we have a very strong food-safety program,” said Ross. The company has HACCP plans in place, and “we are working to be completely PTI-compliant” and compliant with the Food Safety Modernization Act.

“We are constantly being audited here at the ranch,” said Christopher. Whenever Food safety audits are conducted, “our numbers are close to 100 every time. It is one thing we really take a lot of pride in.” That, along with the company’s traceability program, is something “that maybe some of the other competitors, especially the foreign garlic, don’t have.” If there should ever “happen to be a problem with something, we can be on it right away.”

On the marketing side, with the harvest just coming in, the company keeps its plans “fluid” but will be offering customers “different options,” Ross said. “We work with all of our customers whether they are foodservice or retail or industrial, on what makes sense for them. We don’t have a broad-brush marketing plan. It is very individualized” to particular customers.

If a retail customer wants “a unique look,” for example, “we have a small variety of display boxes that are very colorful and great to use,” she said. Among them are a garlic festival display box and a Halloween display box. For customers who do bulk displays, “we can provide shelf talkers or channel strips or recipes or whatever makes sense for that particular retailer.”

Christopher Ranch recommends to retailers “that they merchandise the garlic not necessarily with the onions and potatoes but with the tomatoes and avocados, or any place that has some color differentiation,” Ross said.