SALINAS, Calif. – Church Brothers Farms and FiveStar Gourmet Foods entered into a formal partnership that will enable each company to expand its product portfolios in their respective areas of expertise within the retail and foodservice segments of the fresh produce business.
FiveStar Gourmet Foods, a leader in the premium value-added salads, snacks, and value-added vegetables categories has been sourcing fresh commodities from the family farming program of Church Brothers Farms for several years for the company’s Simply Fresh® brands.
Tal Shoshan, CEO of FiveStar Gourmet Foods, Inc., said the two companies will collaborate on resources, infrastructure, logistics, best-in-class food safety practices and facilitiesto be the most impactful and effective for customers.
“This legal partnership creates a vertically integrated program for FiveStar Gourmet Foods and we are extremely excited to work with such a well-known, established company like Church Brothers Farms,” Shoshan said. “A grower-direct supply helps further our new product innovation especially within packaged salads like blends and kits, which FiveStar plans to impact in a big way, similar to how we impacted the salad bowl category.”
Brian Church, CEO of Church Brothers Farms, said, integrating each company’s strengths and customer bases will compliment the other’s ability to create new opportunities for both grower/processors.
“This partnership allows us to expand into regional processing with FiveStar’s state-of-the-art facilities in California and Florida, and quickly scale up to create new, innovative value added-items for our customers,” Church said. “FiveStar will leverage our strong land base of more than 40,000 conventional and organic crop acres to expand into the bagged salad category.”
The partnership is effective immediately. There will be no change in ownership or personnel; each company will continue to operate independently; however now both companies are better positioned for increased growth.
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About Church Brothers Farms
Church Brothers Farms is a vertically-integrated family owned and operated company that produces a full line of fresh vegetables year-round with an in-house farming/harvest program and state of the art processing plant, True Leaf Farms. We are a grower-owned processor, farming the majority of our raw product ourselves; adhering to industry-leading food safety and quality standards. The Church family has a legacy of service and innovation. For more information about the company visit ChurchBrothers.com.
About FiveStar Gourmet Foods
With an “appetite for excellence”, a leading innovator within fresh value-added foods, Southern-California based FiveStar Gourmet Foods, the producers of the Simply Fresh brand, have been producing premium, healthy foods for more than two decades. With processing facilities nationwide, FiveStar manufacturers a complete line of retail and foodservice products including convenience salad bowls and snacks featuring fresh produce and proteins under the Simply Fresh Salads®, Simply Fresh MiniMeals2Go® and Simply Fresh 4Kids™ brands using all natural, no artificial ingredients. FiveStar has achieved both organic certification and the highest quality and food safety certification of SQF Level 3. To learn more, go to FiveStarGourmetFoods.com.
