It was on a Saturday morning in July that The Produce News found Nick Dulcich sitting in the McFarland, CA, office of Jakov Dulcich And Sons in the Delano grape growing district.  

“That’s interesting that we are talking today,” Nick said over the phone.  “I’m sitting here with my Dad who came to the United States 55 years ago today.”

Nick Dulcich is part of the “And Sons” segment of the company, while his dad is the firm’s namesake.  

Born in Croatia, Jakov left that country in 1959 with his wife and they made their way to Chile.  A year in that South American country taught Jakov Spanish and helped prepare him for what would be a career in the Delano grape growing industry.

Jakov and Antoinette found happiness in the Southern San Joaquin Valley where they raised their children and initially worked for an uncle’s grape vineyard.  In fact, Jakov worked in that operation for more than two decades.

“In 1975, we bought our first 80 acres and started planting it,” said Nick.

Forty years later, the family firm has grown significantly.  Today Jakov Dulcich and Sons is the farming entity of the company with about 6,000 acres of vineyards under its control.  Sunlight International Sales Inc. is the company’s marketing arm.

For much of those 40 years, varieties such as Flame Seedless, Thompson Seedless and Red Globe dominated the marketplace.  

Today Dulcich grows about 20 grape varieties with many different characteristics creating many different options for their customers.  The one thing that ties all those varieties together this year is their early timing.  

“Everything is early this year, which is a good thing,” ” said Dulcich. “Gives us additional time to market them.”

He said the early varieties appear to be down in volume a bit, but the vines for the later varieties — those coming on in August or later — are loaded.  He said it has been a weird weather year with extreme heat in early July followed by a cold front and even some rain — a much needed commodity in drought-stricken California.  

The newest wrinkle at Dulcich is that the company’s grapes have been officially certified as a “non-GMO product.”  While currently all commercial grapes fit this category, Dulcich said he receives a lot of emails from customers and consumers asking about the status of “Pretty Lady” grapes, which is the firm’s signature brand.  

“We received the certification and we are now printing the non-GMO designation on all of our Pretty Lady bags,” he said. The company has also expanded the Pretty Lady line by adding a Halloween-themed bag.  

“We now field a line-up of Pretty Lady bags that takes us through the entire season.  It’s a fun promotion,” Dulcich added.

Also new this year is a two-pound, bi-color, stand-up bag that presents very well at retail.  Like virtually all of the retail-specific products from Sunlight, Dulcich said the two-pounder came from retailer requests.  

“We take lots of trips during the offseason visiting our customers and asking them what they are looking for.  One of them suggested the bi-color pack and we said we can do that.”