Coastline Family Farms, a grower-shipper of Western vegetables with locations in Salinas and Brawley, CA, and Yuma, AZ, announced the formation of a new dry onion growing and packing joint venture with Madison Ranches located in Echo, OR. The new venture will be named Madison-Cox Onions LLC.
The Madison-Cox Onions joint venture will produce red and yellow bulb onions in Hermiston, OR, with the first harvest in September and shipping through March 2020. Madison Ranches will be responsible for the production, storage, packing and shipping for the new venture.
“My family has been growing red, yellow and white dry onions in the Imperial Valley of California for over 35 years,” said Larry Cox, chief executive officer and grower-owner of Coastline. “With the dynamics of the produce marketplace, we wanted to consolidate our onion sales under the Coastline Family Farms structure and develop a year-round onion program on the West Coast. We have known the Madison family for some time, they have a reputation for producing high-quality premium onions in the Hermiston region of Oregon and knew they would be the right partner to help expand our production footprint.”
“Larry, myself, and our teams began discussing working together in the Pacific Northwest last fall,” said Jake Madison, a fourth-generation farmer and CEO of Madison Ranches. “We are very excited about the opportunity to put together a quality-oriented, year-round onion program. Our two family farming companies are very similar, which helps build a strong foundation of trust, shared values and a focus on a customer centric business model”.
Construction commenced the last week of April on the new packing and storage facility, which will feature a state-of-the-art, optical grading, sorting and packing line capable of meeting the needs of clients with onion bags ranging from 10 to 50 pounds.
“We focused the design on automation and state of the art equipment in order to deliver a premium product to our customers,” said Jonathan Miller, general manager of the Madison-Cox Onions joint venture.
“Coastline Family Farms will handle the sales and marketing for the joint venture,” said Tonya Giotta, vice president for foodservice sales, who is joined by Carly Kwak-Bauch, vice president of product and channel development. Both women previously worked together at River Point Farms and were tapped by Coastline to develop a new dry onion business unit.
“The addition of the Madison-Cox joint venture in Oregon gives Coastline a year-round, integrated West Coast supply base,” Giotta added. “This enables us to provide national and regional foodservice operators, distributors, wholesalers and retail clients with a consistent year-round supply of premium dry onions.”
