BEST Award winner, 2009 – Sustainable Food Systems
Organically Grown Company was formed in 1978 as a support organization for Oregon’s organic farmers. Since 1982, OGC has served as the Northwest’s largest wholesaler of organic fruits, vegetables, and herbs.
Utilizing the advantages that a small trade system offers, OGC purchases over 90% of its product line directly from the growers. 35% of the company’s product line is sourced from farmers and orchardists in the Pacific Northwest.
Organically Grown Company holds annual “coordination” meetings with Northwest growers to determine what they will produce for the company each year. This allows farmers to more accurately plan for crops and enhances local farm economic stability by increasing the likelihood that what they grow will be sold.
OGC donates pallets of edible but unmarketable organic fruits and vegetables to the Oregon Food Bank almost daily. In 2005, this totaled over 172,000 pounds of produce.
Waste reduction has been a major area of focus for Organically Grown Company. They successfully developed and implemented a plan that reduced waste sent to the landfill by over 55 percent over a three year period. During this time, the amount of food waste sent to compost doubled.
In 2006, OGC piloted the use of reusable produce boxes with New Seasons Markets, preventing 8,000 non-recyclable wax-boxes from being sent to the landfill by. In 2009 OGC increased this program to replace about 32,000 non-recyclable boxes with reusable containers.
Organically Grown Company is certified by Oregon Tilth as a handler of organic produce and over 98 percent of the food they distribute is organic.
Additionally, OGC purchases 100% renewable wind energy to power its three facilities.
OGC has also gone to great lengths to improve its fleet's efficiency and sustainability, both through routing and equipment choices. OGC is one of the first companies in the U.S. to be piloting the use of hybrid heavy-duty truck technology. The truck saves 10-30% on fuel and runs on a 99% biodiesel blend. All of OGC’s trucks run on at least 24% biodiesel, which is supplied by Sequential Biofuels. Sequential derives 95%-96% of their biofuel from used cooking oil supplied by Northwest restaurants, with the remaining 4%-5% sourced from regionally produced oil from seed crops like canola, grown by Madison Farms in Echo, Oregon.
Each year OGC conducts annual sustainability trainings with all new employees and assemble an employee-led, cross-functional Sustainability Steering Committee to conduct an annual audit and develop new sustainability projects for the following year. Their Management Team then evaluates and integrates selected sustainability projects into our Annual Operating Plan. At the start of the New Year OGC launches new sustainability projects that are spearheaded by employee teams.
Starting in 2005 OGC began a policy of requiring every employee to participate in a “Sustainability Orientation” in order to create a common framework, language, and base of understanding throughout the organization. Over the past three years, 182 staff, 5 grower-owners and Board members have participated in the sustainability training sessions.
OGC also encourages employees to walk, bike, bus or carpool to work, and in 2008 this resulted in a total of 3015 days of employee alternative transport used.
Representatives of OGC have served on the Board of community non-profits and have participated in numerous community projects aimed at increasing access of all citizens to healthy local organic foods. Staff have volunteered on the Board of Directors for the Lane County Farmers Market, the Willamette Food and Farm Coalition, the Oregon Organic Council, to name a few. We have participated in meetings of the Oregon Solutions Food Distribution Project Team, Healthy Food in Health Care, Local Food Connection and supported several farm-to-school projects throughout the state.
Starting in 2005 OGC has purchased all bananas exclusively from Organics Unlimited’s “Giving Resources and Opportunities to Workers” (GROW) program. OGC’s sales of GROW bananas has resulted in a donations of over $130,000 to educational programs and dental and vision clinics in communities in southern Mexico.
