Organic King Dick Peixoto Grows and Gives Big | Santa Cruz Sentinel
In 1977, Dick Peixoto was a young Watsonville farmer struggling to survive to another harvest. The outlook was grim. His fuel company had just cut him off due to an $8,000 debt. Without fuel to run his equipment, Peixoto’s fledgling business would go to seed.
“I was dead in the water until a guy from a local fuel business knocked on my door. He not only offered to sell me the fuel I needed, but he also paid off my debt and gave me 30 days breathing room and manageable terms to repay him,” Peixoto said. “All he wanted in return was my business. I’ve been buying fuel from him for almost 40 years now.”
Today, that’s a considerable amount of business. During the past four decades, Peixoto, 59, has transformed 40-odd acres of conventional green beans into Lakeside Organic Gardens, the largest family owned, solely organic grower-shipper in the U.S. And despite experiencing 20 percent year-over-year growth, Lakeside Organic Gardens can’t come close to fulfilling the massive market demand for its product.
Much like the local fuel company Moreno Petroleum, which saved his business in 1977, Peixoto has made a habit of remembering the community from which his organic empire sprung.
In 2015, Peixoto donated $375,000 to 17 local organizations, including Pajaro Valley Shelter Services, CASA of Santa Cruz County, The Salvation Army and Second Harvest Food Bank.
“I’ve been broke twice since I started growing organic. There was a time when I couldn’t even go down to Taco Bell and charge a burrito on my credit card. I understand tough times,” Peixoto said. “People often experience circumstances beyond their control and they need some help.”
In early January, Peixoto announced that Lakeside Organic Gardens was investing $2 million toward a learning center that could help shape the future or organic and sustainable agriculture.
Project coordinator Agri-Culture, a Pajaro Valley nonprofit, is developing an organic and sustainable agriculture education facility that will serve as a resource to people interested in starting an organic farm, learning about organic farming, or seeing how their food is grown organically.
“I’m concerned where the next generation of farmers is coming from,” Peixoto said. “The learning center is about getting young people back on the farm and discovering agriculture as a viable modern career path.”
Peixoto also provides sizable year-end bonuses to each of his employees: “from the guy hoeing weeds and picking radishes to my harvesting manager.”
When describing the success of his business, Peixoto refers to something he calls “The Lakeside Way.” When asked to define it, he shrugs and says, “Get ‘er done.”
As the company’s owner, grower and planner, Peixoto gets ‘er done. Every day he’s up before dawn to meet with his managers and provide specific plans for as many as 400 to 500 different blocks of produce growing around the Pajaro Valley. He spends most of the day behind the wheel of his “office,” a 2014 Ford Raptor truck, personally checking every single one of those blocks.
“We had some management consultant types come in here a while ago to examine our operations,” Peixoto said. “After three days, they said, ‘We don’t know how you do it, but it works. Don’t stop.’”
In addition to an undeniable work ethic, Peixoto’s success can be tied to foresight and an appetite for risk.
In 1996, Peixoto became frustrated with the constraints of conventional gardens and decided to dedicate 50 acres to 40 different certified organic crops. His colleagues thought he was nuts.
“Fifty acres is kind of a joke when you’re growing 2,500 acres,” Peixoto said. “But transitioning to organics was a steep learning curve because I’d just been a grower up to that point. Now I was responsible for every aspect of the business; packaging, shipping, marketing, the whole thing.”
It was tough going at first. Peixoto tried selling at local farmers markets, but found he had to go as far away as Fairfield to find available space. Instead, he hired a salesperson and began selling wholesale.
“I got better at growing organic by applying conventional techniques to the process,” he said. “But it was difficult. You have to grow carefully because it takes three years to transition 200 acres. I went broke twice.”
However, it wasn’t until Peixoto began growing in the Imperial Valley to provide year-round produce that the company “took off like a rocket.” While he has a manager in the Imperial Valley, Peixoto still travels south for one to two days every 2 weeks to oversee the operation.
Today, Lakeside Organic Gardens consists of 1,000 acres in the Imperial Valley and 1,500 acres in the Pajaro Valley. He also takes an interest in the California Grill, the Freedom-area restaurant he bought for 25-year-old daughter Ashley more than three years ago. The restaurant uses primarily locally sourced food, including Lakeside Organic Gardens produce and its walls are decorated with a revolving gallery of photos on loan from the Pajaro Valley Historical Society.
“Our motto is ‘Perpetual Pajaro Valley Pride,’” Peixoto said.
About Dick Peixoto:
Who: Founder and owner of Pajaro Valley’s Lakeside Organic Gardens, the largest family owned, solely organic grower-shipper in the U.S.
Age: 59.
Education: Peixoto was already farming 40 acres of green beans while attending Watsonville High School.
Family: Wife, Marisella, 55; daughter, Ashley, 25; daughter, Amanda, 23; and son, Ricky, 21. Peixoto’s grandfather, Joseph Peixoto was a Watsonville potato farmer who immigrated from the Azores Islands in Portugal in the early 1900s. Peixoto’s father, Joseph Peixoto, was a commercial fertilizer and chemical supplier.
2015 LAKESIDE ORGANICS DONATIONS
• California Foundation for Ag in the Classroom
• ASA of Santa Cruz County
• Dominican Foundation Katz Cancer Resource Center
• Families in Transition in Santa Cruz County
• Toys for Tots
• Jacob’s Heart
• Pajaro Valley Shelter Services
• Pajaro Valley Loaves and Fishes
• Salinas Circle for Children
• The Salvation Army
• Second Harvest Food Bank
• Survivors Healing Center
• Teen Kitchen Project
• Jovenes Sanos
• Veterans of Foreign Wars
• Monarch Services
• Youth NOW
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel, March 12, 2016
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