Church Bros. LLC in Salinas, CA, which has enjoyed an increase in every category of its business, will be showcasing several new products at its booth at the Produce Marketing Association's Foodservice Conference & Expo in Monterey, CA, July 27, according to Ernst Van Eeghen, vice president of marketing.

Among the new products are a blend of baby kales with spinach, chards and radicchio, a blend of Treviso and Romaine, and a mix of green heart leaves and Romaine heart leaves with "a touch of radicchio," he said.

"The expo is in our back yard, so this is what I call a home field advantage," Van Eeghen told The Produce News. In addition to the company's exhibit at the expo, "on Saturday night (July 26) we've got our famous Church Bros. Ranch Party. It is a great party on the original homestead ranch here."

In the days and weeks surrounding the conference, "we will have a lot of our existing customers coming in for meetings, field tours, plant tours and dinners," he said.

At Church Bros. "our story continues with recorded growth throughout every single category of our business, so we are in a good position," Van Eeghen said. "It is really an organic growth," 70 percent of it coming from existing customers. "This is a number that we watch carefully. It is a number we are very proud of, because this growth is a reward from our customers for exceeding their expectations and growing their business with us."

Some of the business growth does come from new customers such as chain restaurants, he said. "But the largest part is growth through the existing distribution channels," which is "a very important indicator to us that we are doing a lot of things right at the moment."

Over the past couple of years, the company has become "very taste sensitive," Van Eeghen said. "Meaning that we don't want to be just a supplier, 'Here is your lettuce,' and we're done, but really collaborate with our customers on what they are trying to achieve and deliver flavor — and not just on varieties but also on customized blends."

While many restaurants offer "the regular staples" on their salad menu such as garden salad and Caesar salad, there is a movement among many customers away from "cookie cutter salads," he said. That initiative provides "a great opportunity," and Church Bros. has already worked with several chains "on customizing their current offerings and giving them a point of differentiation. We do a lot of work directly with these customers to help them create unique blends and compositions and flavor profiles and cut sizes and so on, to really tailor to their specific demographics."

Repeat sales come from "a very positive flavor experience," he said.

One of the advantages of Church Bros. is "that we are completely vertically integrated," Van Eeghen said. "We control everything from seed variety and site selection to farming and harvesting. We are not just a processor."

Over the past five years, the company has "invested more than $30 million in our processing facility on new equipment and new quality and food-safety systems that we have incorporated," he said. “We have really customized our wash line to meet our specific needs."

At Church Bros. "we have grown our business with a very safe product" and have focused, as well, on "maintaining quality year-round."

In addition to doing customized products for specific individual clients, the company tries to introduce some interesting new items for its customers each year. One recent introduction is in the kale category.

"In every product category we are hitting record volumes," Van Eeghen said. "Our leafy lettuces, iceberg, Romaine, spring mix, spinach, arugula and kale are all categories that are going through the roof right now. But the kale category is probably the fastest growing one."

As recently as a couple of years ago, Church Bros. offered bunched kale, a field-packed kale and a washed, whole leaf kale item, he said. "That has really now transitioned into different chopped kales and shredded kales" as well as "rainbow kales where we utilize different kale varieties with different flavors and different textures."

For salads in particular, "the baby kale category has exploded," he said. "We are using baby kale of all different types and varieties to make the flavor as good as it can be."

The company offers a regular baby kale blend and "Italian Greens" blend of baby kale with wild arugula, and has just introduced a "Power Mix" blend that complements the tender hardiness of baby kale "with the sweet flavors of spinach, chards and Lola Rosa" to deliver an "exquisite flavor," he said. "We pack it in three one-pound bags in our specialty 'Tuscan' brand."

Also new is a Treviso blend. "Treviso is an Italian specialty radicchio" that is milder and moister than regular radicchio and has more crunch.

"We combine that with sweet chopped Romaine," Van Eeghen said. “The blend can be used in a Caesar said "to give it something unique, something special" with "a nice Italian upscale flavor," he added. "We pack that in four two-pound bags per carton in the 'True Lear Farms' label."

A third new item, he said, is "four two-pound bags of 'Cascade Mix'" which is a combination of green leaf heart leaves and romaine heart leaves "with a touch of radicchio."

The product is "triple washed, like all our items, but is minimally processed," not chopped or shredded," so it has "a nice place coverage" as well as "a nice loft to it," Van Eeghen said.