Friday, March 5, 2021
CapitalPress.com
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Dave Leder/For the Capital Press
Eddie Alvarez, left, runs Alvarez Farms in Mabton, Wash., with his father, Hilario, and younger brother, Steven.
Yakima Valley organic farmers find niche with city-dwellers
By DAVE LEDER
For the Capital Press
Alvarez Farms has been around for
35 years, yet many of the family’s Cen-
tral Washington neighbors have never
sampled their abundant selection of
organic produce.
That’s because most of their cus-
tomers live in the Puget Sound area,
a three-hour drive from their 80-acre
farm in Mabton, 35 miles southeast of
Yakima.
“We don’t get a lot of attention
around here because there’s not a big
market for organics,” said farm man-
ager Eddie Alvarez, whose father,
Hilario, started the business in 1986.
“Most of our customers are from the
Seattle area — probably 90% of them
— and that’s the way it’s always been.”
Alvarez Farms grows an exten-
sive variety of organic row crops —
including lettuce, kale, onions, shallots,
asparagus, tomatoes, garlic, squash,
peppers (hot and mild), potatoes, zuc-
chini and peanuts — and transports the
produce over the Cascades every day
from April through October with its
fleet of 15 delivery trucks.
Their customer base includes gro-
cery chains like Whole Foods and
regional distributors like Charlie’s Pro-
duce, plus restaurants and home deliv-
ery services. But the Alvarez Farms
name is most recognizable to farmers
market patrons on Washington’s west
side.
“I remember when I was 14, a
friend of mine pointed me to the Pike
Place Market,” Eddie Alvarez, 41,
said of the iconic waterfront market
in downtown Seattle. “That’s where I
built my reputation and started getting
interest from different market manag-
ers. Now, we sell produce at more than
20 farmers markets a week.”
The family also attends two markets
east of the mountains — one in Pasco,
one in Roslyn — but the focus of the
business is, without a doubt, big-city
consumers. Alvarez said home deliv-
eries have become increasingly popu-
lar in the Seattle and Portland markets
over the past year due to COVID-19.
“Lots of restaurants have shut
down, but the home deliveries have
really taken off,” he said. “We see
that as the next step for our business
— combining our produce with other
organic products like meat, bread and
cheese and delivering it to people’s
homes.”
Seeking to create more alternative
revenue sources for the winter months,
the family purchased a commercial
food dehydrator to boost sales online
and at early-season farmers markets.
Starting this year, they will be selling a
wider selection of dried peppers, pick-
led vegetables, and other non-seasonal
items such as pepper wreaths.
But it won’t be long before the Alva-
rezes are growing full time again. They
stock their greenhouses in February and
start planting hardier crops like beets,
peas, fava beans and salad onions in
March. The transplants go out in early
May, and then it’s off to the races.
“It can be tough because the crops
need to be picked when they need
to be picked,” Eddie Alvarez said.
“Sometimes we’re out picking at mid-
night with a headlamp because we
don’t have a warehouse. Everything is
picked fresh every day.”
Alvarez’s younger brother Steven
oversees the deliveries and wholesale
operations, while their father remains
involved in all facets of the business. In
fact, Hilario Alvarez, 67 — who immi-
grated from Mexico to Wapato, Wash.,
in 1970 — still enjoys agricultural
work as much as he did in his youth.
“My dad started out as a farm
laborer in Mexico, and that is all he’s
ever known,” Eddie Alvarez said.
“We depend a lot on his experience
when we make decisions about what
to plant from year to year because he
just understands how things work. He
has a real green thumb for this, and we
depend on him every day.”
Learn more about Alvarez Farms at
www.alvarezorganic.com.
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