montereycountynow.com/bestof BEST OF MONTEREY COUNTY® 2024 43 Best Farmers Market Old Monterey Farmers Market Alvarado Street between Del Monte and Pearl, Monterey (831) 655-2607, oldmonterey.org Stroll down ol’ Alvarado on a Tuesday afternoon and peruse the finest produce and merchandise the townsfolk have hunted, gathered and toiled away to create. You can provision for the week to come with fresh, local, seasonal fruits, vegetables, honey, eggs, mushrooms and more. You can also find a hot meal to get you through the night, get beautiful baubles to lift your spirits or collect handcrafted wares to spruce up the homestead. You can also expect to run into old friends and make new ones—beyond the shopping, the social dimension to this yearround market is part of what makes it the best. Best Big Grower - Fruits & Vegetables Tanimura & Antle 1 Harris Road, Salinas (800) 772-4542, taproduce.com You couldn’t call yourself a cowboy in the Old West if your diet didn’t consist of beef, beans and potatoes. Yes, there is protein and vegetables there, but where are the options? This was the time before Tanimura & Antle graced us with their fresh varieties of lettuce, broccoli, onions and more, so those old westerners can be forgiven—the company’s founding families have farmed in the Salinas Valley for more than 90 years, just missing out on that bygone era. In fact, these families helped make the modern farming era. Tanimura & Antle grows its produce on ranches throughout Monterey County, and across the Imperial Valley and into Arizona. Chances are that lettuce you had in your sandwich for lunch today was grown locally. Best Organic Grower Earthbound Farm 150 Main St., Salinas (800) 690-3200 Farmstand, 7250 Carmel Valley Road, Carmel (831) 625-6219, earthboundfarm.com During the days of the Old West, there was no concept of organic farming because it was, well, just farming. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides were still decades away. Farmers of the era relied on hard work and the wisdom of the ages to combat weeds and pests. Earthbound Farm got its start on a 2.5-acre backyard plot in Carmel Valley in 1984 to harken back to those early days, ahead of the surge in consumer interest for organic produce. They’re now a leader in organic produce, owned by Taylor Farms (a leader in its own right—see below), setting the bar for the industry. Best Ag Industry Leader Bruce Taylor Taylor Farms, 150 Main St. #300, Salinas (877) 323-7374, taylorfarms.com Stories of the Old West are full of people with pioneering spirits who were willing to try hard things in tough conditions. Bruce Taylor is the modern-day manifestation of that kind of grit, a requirement for succeeding at this level, which is to say creating the company that has become the largest supplier of fresh-cut salad in the United States. Taylor also has a vision. He has remade downtown Salinas into a fitting capital for the Salad Bowl of the World. As a developer and business owner he moved Taylor Farms’ headquarters and has revitalized dilapidated buildings, making him not just an industry leader, but a city leader as well. Best Woman In Ag Colby Pereira Braga Fresh 33750 Moranda Road, Soledad. (831) 675-2154, bragafresh.com Cowboys in the Wild West subsisted largely on canned beans and hardtack. Imagine how much fresher—and healthier—life would have been if they’d had ag industry leaders like Colby Pereira paving the way for the safest, most efficient and most delicious ways to grow vegetables. (She’s especially fond of spinach, both to eat and to grow: “Watching how food goes from seed to edible product so fast is mindblowing to me,” she says.) Pereira was born into farming and started in her family business, Costa Family Farms, before making her way to Braga Fresh in 2020, then becoming Chief Operating Officer. She’s also president of the Monterey County Farm Bureau and serves on the executive committee of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement. Weekly readers are not the only ones to recognize her leadership; the Grower-Shipper Foundation also recognized her as the Ag Woman of the Year in 2024. Best Local Ag Educator Hartnell College 1752 E. Alisal St., Salinas (831) 755-6960, hartnell.edu Feel like feeding people in all 50 states, and around the world? The Monterey County agriculture industry pulls in $4 billion per year doing just that, Agriculture AGriculture Best Organic Grower | Earthbound Farm
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