At Growers Exchange, Mr. Nunes and his brother, Bob Nunes, began their life-long partnership. Bob had been working in sales for Kavanaugh Distributing Co. and when the person responsible for sales and marketing at Growers Exchange retired, Bob bought into the firm and took over that department.
Mr. Nunes and Bob worked six years together at Growers Exchange. In 1966, they left to form Nunes Bros. of California Inc., an integrated grower-shipper of fresh vegetables. Nunes Bros. immediately displayed innovation and creativity, pioneering film-wrapped lettuce and using this to launch a joint promotion offering 25 cents off Lawry’s Seasoned Salt on the wrapper of the Nunes Bros. lettuce.
The Salinas Valley Produce Industry recognizing Mr. Nunes’ leadership at Nunes Bros. elected him to the board of directors of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California where Mr. Nunes served as the chairman during the 1967-1968 association year.
Later, Mr. Nunes and Bob developed a documentary of the company that was shown at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco during the 1968 United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association convention. Viewed by United Fruit Co. (Chiquita), its management was impressed and began courting Mr. Nunes and Bob, intending to buy Nunes Bros. Although initially turning down the offer from United Fruit, Mr. Nunes and Bob eventually accepted, along with four other Salinas Vegetable Grower-Shippers. The newly formed company, Interharvest, became one of the nation’s largest produce operations with Mr. Nunes and Bob at the helm.
They later resigned, which triggered a five-year non-competition agreement. Never one to stay still, Mr. Nunes studied real estate and landed a cameo role in the Oscar-winning production of The Godfather Part II. However, at the end of five years, the produce industry beckoned, and Mr. Nunes and Bob started The Nunes Co. Inc. in 1976. Eventually the company became a truly integrated grower-shipper, which included shipping, cooling, growing and harvesting operations.
Mr. Nunes once said, “We had a great advantage of building a company and then selling it and getting to start over. It allowed us to look at what we did right and look at what we did wrong and build a better company.”
Mr. Nunes believed that people were the company’s most important asset, and the mutual loyalty and respect was evident as most of the top employees from Nunes Bros. returned to work with Mr. Nunes and Bob at The Nunes Co.
Mr. Nunes also believed that family was key to the stability and quality produced by the company. Mr. Nunes (T4) in sales, David in growing and land base, Jimmy in farming, and Bob Jr., Bob’s son, on the cooling and harvesting side. They have been instrumental in growing the company from a modest 1,200 acres to over 20,000 acres in California, Arizona and Nevada.
The core business of the company was the population-heavy Northeast corridor where the Foxy brand became synonymous with quality. By 1989 as a result of consistent quality and industry-leading awareness, including a marketing campaign with Brooke Shields and other celebrities, the brand has become recognized globally. Value-added operations, organic production and strawberries extended the reach of the brand in the ensuing years.
In the late 1990s, Bob and Mr. Nunes started to turn over control to the next generation — Tom (T4) David, Jimmy and Bob Jr. The next generation, including Tom M. Nunes (T5) also began to learn the business.
Mr. Nunes and his brother were honored by The National Steinbeck Center for their leadership and innovation with induction into the Valley of the World Hall of Fame in 2010 and by the produce industry with the E. E. (Gene) Harden Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California in 2017.
Then in 2018, T5, representing the third generation of the Nunes Family became president and carries on the traditions and culture created by Tom (T3) and maintained by his father, Tom (T4).
One of the last things Mr. Nunes said was “trust” was the key to life. “Grandpa lived that, and you can see it in the loyalty of employees returning to The Nunes Company after the five-year hiatus, the growers’ willingness to accept a structure built on trust in the company, the many long-term employees, and the customers who trusted that the right high-quality product would be there every time," said T5. "Our family lost our pillar, and the industry lost an important and influential leader.”
