Main Street Produce, originally known as Sunset Strawberry Growers, was founded in 1976 by Alton Allen and a partner who leased five acres of land in Santa Maria, CA, and grew strawberries with the help of Alton’s sons and five sharecroppers, four of whom eventually became independent strawberry shippers in their own right and are still in business today, according to a written historical timeline of the company exclusive to The Produce News. The following account is extracted from that timeline:

By 1980, Sunset Strawberry Growers acreage had increased to 30 acres, and because there were virtually no cooling facilities available to independent growers in Santa Maria at the time, Sunset Strawberry Growers built its own cooling and loading facility in a rented 1904 wooden warehouse. This seemed to be the turning point for Allen, as he was able to grow, cool and ship his own strawberries. All appeared to be moving in a very positive direction, until disaster struck. One day, returning from lunch in nearby Guadalupe, Allen saw smoke in the sky, and wondered to himself what was on fire. Getting closer, he could see that it was his own cooling facility, which by that time, was engulfed in flames. Because this building was more than 75 years old and was built from redwood timbers, it burned to the ground in a matter of moments. It appeared that this could be the end for Allen’s strawberry venture, which had begun four years before.

Within days, the situation went from bad to worse. Upon consulting with the Santa Barbara County Planning Department about what would be required to rebuild as quickly as possible, since it was midseason, he was told that despite the urgency, there was no way to expedite the process and that it was going to take a very long time to obtain the necessary permits to rebuild if they were granted at all — which could not be guaranteed. Allen knew that because of limited funds, his business would not survive this protracted recovery, and he began looking at other ways of making a living.

The following Monday, Allen got a phone call from someone at the Santa Barbara County Planning Department, who told him, to his complete amazement, that his permits were, at that moment, ready to be picked up. Allen was always a man of faith, and felt very strongly that this was yet another instance of God providing for him. The cooler was rebuilt on the same piece of leased ground, and he was back in operation.

In 1983, Allen had a profitable cauliflower crop, and used the proceeds to purchase property on which he could expand his cooling operations. The first iteration of what would eventually become the Main Street Produce cooler was built that year and was called the West Main Cooler. At that time, the strawberry industry in Santa Maria was in its infancy, and the time was right to construct a commercial cooler for other strawberry shippers who wanted to establish a strawberry growing presence in that region.

In 1991, Allen bought out his partner and made his 27-year-old son, Paul, his new partner in the venture, now called Main Street Produce. Together, they began to expand the strawberry cooling business by increasing their own acreage and by financing and marketing the strawberries of other growers in the “Main Street Produce” label. They continued on this path for almost 10 years, but eventually determined that it was critical to their long-term success that they have control over the quality of the product that bore the “Main Street Produce” label, and therefore increased their farming enterprise significantly.

In 1995, in response to this desire to be able to control the quality of what went in their label, Paul Allen began Main Street Farms. The focus shifted away from financing outside growers and instead moved toward growing product themselves. Paul manned the strawberry sales desk, his older brother Scott sold broccoli, and Alton Allen was the cooler manager. The businesses continued to grow.

In the winter of 2003, after working together side by side each day, six days a week for 20 years, Paul Allen lost his father to cancer. With the tremendous void this created in the business, Main Street Produce was extremely fortunate to hire Dan Piester, a well-respected 20-year veteran of the cooling industry, as the general manager of Main Street Produce in 2004.

Over the next decade, the focus was directly on growing consistently high-quality strawberries over a longer growing season, by choosing several different strawberries varieties on ranches strategically located throughout the microclimates of Santa Maria Valley. This year Main Street Produce expects to ship berries from February through December.

In 2014, Main Street Produce hired Steve Circle, previously director of sales for Sunrise Growers Inc., as director of sales and marketing for strawberries.

Today, although founder Alton Allen is still greatly missed, his son Paul is committed to the proposition that Main Street Produce will always operate under the same code of ethics Alton Allen instilled in his family and his company. Today, that translates into developing business practices that are sensitive to the needs of Main Street’s customers, employees, community and environment. Paul Allen is proud of Main Street Produce’s reputation for quality and integrity.