Snohomish County Business Journal


YOUR COUNTY.	YOUR BUSINESS JOURNAL.

Published August 2003

Family venture
nurtures local growers

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

On a recent summer morning, Tristan Klesick and his family were busy tending to their crops.

On two acres of leased land east of Lake Stevens, Klesick; his wife, Joelle; and their six children, from 11-year-old Micah to 18-month-old Madeleine, were harvesting bok choy, picking green beans and gathering sunflowers for the next day’s farmers’ market and for their home-delivery business, The Organic Produce Shoppe.

After their labors was the promise of a trip to the Pilchuck River nearby, a favorite pastime of the kids, Tristan Klesick said.

Snohomish County Business Journal/KIMBERLY HILDEN
Tristan Klesick (back) picks some greens while his son Aaron, 8, boxes bok choy on the family’s two acres of farmland east of Lake Stevens.

“Our family all works together. Obviously, we play a lot, too,” he said, smiling. “They all help pick, and they all help play. It’s good — it’s a good thing.”

That good thing began in 1998 with 2,000 cloves of garlic — the first crop grown by the Klesicks after they bought a home on an acre of land in Snohomish. At the time, Tristan and Joelle were operating an organic produce store and looking for a way to run a farm-based family business.

The couple decided to combine their retail experience with their desire to farm and by June 1999 had sold their store and founded The Organic Produce Shoppe, which offers weekly home delivery year-round of organic, or chemical-free, produce, with a focus on local growers.

“It supports a lot of local farms during the growing season,” Tristan Klesick said of his business. “We can’t grow it all, nor would we want to. I have no desire to grow all of the produce. It’s better to share the wealth.”

So he buys raspberries from a grower in north Snohomish County, carrots and greens from a grower in the Skagit Valley and cherries and apples from growers in Eastern Washington to augment what his family grows and delivers to the doorsteps of clients throughout the county.

Those clients have grown steadily in number, with the family now making deliveries on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays — from Marysville to Edmonds and Lake Stevens to Woodinville — to meet the demand.

“It’s really just by the grace of God,” Tristan Klesick said of that growth. “We care about people, and we have a family experience, and we just provide good quality produce to our customers. They, in turn, — it’s all been word of mouth — refer their friends to us, and before long it begins to snowball.”

Customers have the choice of ordering family boxes, small boxes, fruit-only boxes and vegetable-only boxes. What comes in those boxes is a mix of produce. One week it may be a selection of bananas, nectarines, plums, cherries, zucchini, lettuce, carrots and snap peas. Another week it could be grapes and apricots, shallots, Walla Walla onions and bok choy. Customers also can order extra produce to go along with their boxes.

“It’s an exciting product because it’s like getting a Christmas present every week — it just shows up at your door,” Tristan Klesick said.

“We try to stay seasonal. We try some things that they wouldn’t normally buy, too,” he added. “We might buy the peas or the kale or the beets every now and then in addition to the apples and bananas and cherries. This week, we did dill; last week, we did cilantro and gave recipes that use those items.”

Along with produce and recipes, the Klesicks deliver a weekly newsletter that apprises customers of the farm’s production, issues facing agriculture in the region as well as the Klesick clan’s recent adventures.

Together, the services create a sense of community, which the Klesicks further through their Helping Fund — a program in which customers donate funds that are put toward purchasing organic produce for food banks and other organizations that help feed the hungry or homeless.

“We put healthy food in places where they wouldn’t normally buy organic,” Tristan Klesick said. “(The customers) don’t have the resources to buy it like I do, and I don’t have the resources to buy it without their help, so the combination of buyer relationship with my wholesalers and my customers actually turns into a good thing for the community.”

Since starting the program at the first of the year, about $2,000 in produce has been given back to the community, he said.

“And, really, it’s about being a part of a community,” he said.

For more information on The Organic Produce Shoppe, call 425-377-0295 or go online to www.organicproduceshoppe.com.

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