Coastline Family Farms has formed a new dry onion growing and packing joint venture with Madison Ranches of Echo, Oregon. The new venture will be named Madison-Cox Onions LLC.
“My family has been growing red, yellow and white dry onions in the Imperial Valley of California for over 35 years,” said Larry Cox, CEO 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 an all 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. We are very excited about the opportunity to put together a quality oriented, year-round onion program,” said Jake Madison, a fourth-generation farmer and CEO of Madison Ranches. “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.”
The Madison-Cox Onions joint venture will produce red and yellow bulb onions in Hermiston, Oregon, with the first harvest in September 2019 and shipping through March o2020. Madison Ranches will be responsible for the production, storage, packing and shipping for the new venture.
“We started construction this week on our 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 our 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, GM of the Madison-Cox Onions joint venture.
“Coastline Family Farms will handle the sales and marketing for the joint venture,” said Tonya Giotta, VP for foodservice sales.
The onion and vegetable sales veteran is joined by Carly Kwak-Bauch, VP 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. 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,” said Giotta.
Coastline Family Farms was founded in 1991 and is owned by Larry and Tina Cox with locations in Salinas and Brawley, California, and Yuma, Arizona.
