Three longtime Southern California strawberry families have launched Gem-Pack Berries LLC, a new label and organization to sell their year-round production of strawberries.

Matt Kawamura, who is an owner of Orange County Produce, and a third-generation grower-shipper, said the new company is operating right down the street from his Irvine, CA, office and is staffed by his son, Paul Kawamura, and Rosa Melchor.

“I am also helping out with sales at this point,” said the older Kawamura, whose father and grandfather before him were strawberry shippers also, making Paul the fourth generation in the family business. Another key principal in the firm is A.G. Kawamura, Matt’s brother.

Matt KawamuraThrough the original company and its successor, the Kawamuras have marketed their own production as well as that of the Fujishige and Etchandy families for each of the past three generations, spanning more than 50 years. Matt Kawamura said the structural changes of the company and the increasing size of the strawberry farming operations led to the launching of the new organization by the three families. Orange County Produce continues to thrive and be the entity that markets the Kawamura’s year-round and international green bean deals. Gem-Pack has been organized to market the strawberry of the three collaborative families, as well as the production of other growers. Currently, the firm is marketing several different labels, including the newly named Gem-Pack.

“It was done for technical and financial reasons,” said Kawamura. “We have separated the marketing arm from the growing entities.”

He noted that in the past three years, the volume being marketed more than tripled and now includes production from Mexico, Orange County, Oxnard and Watsonville. The marketing arm now has many different deals up and down the state, including a collaboration with the “Healthy Heart” label from Watsonville grown by the Gonzales family.

While several labels will be maintained for the purpose of marketing local labels within close proximity of the various farms, Kawamura said that over time Gem-Pack will become the firm’s dominant label, including for its Mexican production.

For the 2016-17 season, Gem-Pack is expecting to market about 10 million trays, from 800 acres in Oxnard, another 200 in Orange County and additional deals in Mexico and Watsonville. Kawamura said the California strawberry deal is consolidating in fewer hands with a half-dozen shippers or less controlling close to 80 percent of the volume from most of the districts. In Orange County, Gem-Pack Berries and its 200 acres is the only shipper left.

At 800 acres, he said the firm represents as much production as anyone else in Oxnard.

Watsonville is also dominated by a handful of shippers, though some smaller shippers are still surviving. While Santa Maria and Watsonville still have quite a few small growers, Kawamura said that number is decreasing every year.

“It’s not easy being a strawberry grower in California,” he said. “We face a lot of regulations that make it very difficult to compete. It is not an even playing field.”

Other factors also play a role in exacerbating the situation. Kawamura said the active Naval Weapons Station in nearby Seal Beach, CA, is still home to some strawberry acreage that Gem-Pack controls, but the restrictions associated with getting crews on that site to plant, grow and harvest the berries adds to the difficulty quotient.