While Santa Maria, CA, may not have a moniker such as "Salad Bowl of the Nation? like its northerly neighbor Salinas, the area does have plenty to offer growers.

The biggest growth pattern for PIM is in Santa Maria," said Will McCarthy, regional sales manager for Salinas-based Pacific International Marketing. "Salinas is getting squeezed out."

Santa Maria represents a strong area of expansion for the company, now in its third year of a five-year growth plan, Mr. McCarthy said.

Mr. McCarthy told The Produce News March 23 that Santa Maria is gaining in popularity in part because the quality of the ground is excellent, there?s a long growing season with seed varieties and the area is producing high-quality product.

?[Santa Maria] serves as a good fill-in slot for San Joaquin," Mr. McCarthy said. PIM?s harvest starts in the desert, moves to the San Joaquin Valley and then moves to the coast in Santa Maria before reversing the order. "With marketing, you don?t want a gap," Mr. McCarthy said.

PIM grows cauliflower and broccoli year round. Already going are items such as butter, red and green-leaf lettuces, cilantro, Romaine and Romaine hearts. Iceberg lettuce just got started the week of March 21. Celery should start in May and sweet corn should start in July.

PIM?s organic program " celery, cauliflower, broccoli and Romaine " should start around early May. The company also produces spinach three seasons out of the year.

PIM has more than a decade invested in its organic program, which is in its third year of production, Mr. McCarthy said.

The company?s Romaine program targets foodservice and retail, and it exports a significant volume of broccoli to Japan.

The abnormally high rainfall this year has posed some problems in Santa Maria resulting in stops and starts, making it difficult to stay with a planting schedule, Mr. McCarthy said.

Including Mr. McCarthy, PIM has three salespeople in Santa Maria. The others are Michelle Truesdale and Garrett Bernard.

In 2005, PIM is focusing on iceless broccoli packs and has allocated resources to ensure food safety, Mr. McCarthy said.

Over at Babe Farms in Santa Maria, the company grows, processes and ships more than 100 commodity items, focusing on baby specialty salads and baby vegetables.

The company is in specialty vegetables, said Carrie Jordan, Babe?s marketing manager. "There?s no Iceberg, regular cauliflower, no strawberries."

Among its items are specialty and baby vegetables including spinach, carrots, cauliflower, squash and 15 lettuce varieties. Most of Babe?s produce is available year round. It also has a line of value-added specialty salad blends, baby spinach and baby Romaine that is in chef-ready packaging.

The company handles customized salad blends and sells to retail, wholesale and foodservice.

?We sell about 60 percent to foodservice," said Ms. Jordan, adding that most of the retail sales go to specialty chains.

The rainy weather hasn?t posed any setbacks because Babe?s products are hand-harvested and getting machinery into the fields is not an issue, Ms. Jordan said. The company also grows baby squash and French beans in Mexico.

Since Babe?s orders typically are bought by boxes and result in mixed pallets, the company can take a pallet of its product to a neighboring company?s cooler so that a truck can pick it up there in one stop, Ms. Jordan said.