National Nut Grower National Nut Grower

September/October 2024
Carriere Family Farms navigates a new era in walnut production
By Keith Loria

Carriere Family Farms possesses decades of growing, processing, selling and shipping quality inshell and kernel walnuts around the world.

Old photo of Herb and Bill Carrier standing side by side in a walnut orchard.
Herb and Bill Carrier in 1987. Photo courtesy of Carrier Family Farms.

The Glenn, California, family operation grows and processes 10 varieties of English walnuts, including Chandler, Howard and Hartley. Carriere Family Farms processes for approximately 100 northern California growers of all sizes, with its own farms producing about 15% of the company’s overall processing.

“Our first year of processing, we packed 11 loads of bleached jumbo Hartley walnuts, all shipped to Spain,” said William D. Carriere, president and CEO of the operations. “It took two days to process a load, and we loaded the containers by hand. Today, we ship several loads of inshell and/or kernels every day to more than 25 countries, and most everything is automated with dedicated loading and logistics teams.”

Carriere Family Farms history

The genesis of Carriere Family Farms comes from more than a century of history.

William Carriere’s great-grandfather, Albini Carriere, immigrated to California in the 1890s and purchased a small 17-acre farm, where the great-grandson built his home and resides today, Carriere said. Albini worked for a local farmer and cultivated his small farm, growing grains such as corn, milo and wheat. He eventually married the farmer’s eldest daughter and raised four children, which included William’s grandfather, Wilfred, the oldest. During the Depression, William’s grandfather purchased 200 acres of land and was one of the valley’s rice pioneers.

Historic photo of horses pulling farm equipment in a field owned by Carriere Family Farms.
Carriere Family Farms began with Albini Carriere in the 1890s and grew during the Depression when Carriere’s grandfather purchased 200 acres. Photo courtesy of Carriere Family Farms.

After attending UC Davis and a short military service, in 1964, William’s father and uncle returned to the farm. His dad purchased 30 acres of walnuts and a house, while his uncle acquired some nearby land.

“My father loved working with the walnuts, and my uncle worked primarily in rice,” Carriere said. “Over the years, my father and uncle grew the business and expanded their acreage of walnuts, including building a huller and dehydrator.”

In 1986, they partnered with Borges, a Spanish family- owned company that wanted to vertically integrate its walnut purchases by owning some orchards in California.

“This basically doubled the walnut acreage we were farming and added another huller and dehydrator to the farm,” Carriere said. “By doing this, we brought in several other family members to help manage the team. Borges was mainly an inshell buyer, and we continued the integration in 2000 with the construction of an inshell walnut packing plant. Eventually, we added a shelling plant in 2015, allowing us to provide a complete array of walnut products for the world market.”

In 2022, Carriere Family Farms bought out the Borges ownership, and now the Carriere family members own 100% of the company.

Carriere tech investments

Carriere Family Farms has made significant investments in technology, including upgrading its ERP, inventory and HRIS systems.

“At Carriere Family Farms, we are always looking for the next innovation for the business,” Carriere said. “We are on the cutting edge of farm management on our own farms, and we try to share this with our growers as much as possible. We believe that what is good for the industry is good for us.”

Close-up of a walnut tree with green leaves and ripening walnuts.
Photo courtesy of Carriere Family Farms

Automation and efficiency are paramount, especially during times when the marketing cycle is at a low point.

“We have added several new laser and color sorters to our packing line and a new SCADA system to monitor processing activity in real time,” Carriere said. “We are trying to do more in bulk without hand labor or forklift traffic.”

On the farming side, operations are already completely mechanized, and no human hand touches the walnuts in the field.

“We have been forced to reduce labor in the fields, so some processes have been automated at harvest, such as removing sticks from the windrows with sorting equipment, but it is low-tech,” Carriere said. “We are using the latest pheromone disruption technology when appropriate, and, of course, we rotate chemical active ingredients often to combat resistance.”

Sustainability efforts at Carriere

In the fields, Carriere Family Farms practices integrated pest management, ensuring that it uses only the necessary amount of chemicals.

“We are cover cropping to add natural nitrogen to the soil, increase water penetration and attract beneficial predators,” Carriere said. “We actively monitor the trees’ moisture needs with pressure bomb technology to ensure we are not over- applying water. We have also been chipping our orchard prunings rather than burning them for the past 10 years.”

Carriere Family Farms was also an early adopter of solar power to run its wells, office and processing facilities. Powered by 27 solar arrays, the farm is installing an additional 1 MW solar array on the processing plant, which will include eight car charging stations for employees and visitors.

“We recycle all of our cardboard, metal and used pallets,” Carriere said. “By the end of 2024, we hope to have completed a system to convert all of our waste walnut shell into green energy with almost no emissions.”

The farm utilizes a private pest control adviser and practices integrated pest management.

“Our biggest concern this year is neighbors cutting corners to save money due to low walnut prices,” Carriere said. “Many growers have skipped the first-generation codling moth spray, which could increase pressure later in the season if the population grows. Heat is also becoming more and more of a factor, and it is important to keep the trees well-irrigated to minimize sunburn damage, which can also attract navel orangeworm navel orangeworm later in the season. We have planted cover crops in our orchards to attract beneficial predators, help with nitrogen fixation and improve water penetration.”

Carriere Family Farms looks to the future

The company’s new 250,000-square-foot processing and storage building, which was completed in 2023, will accommodate its growth for at least the next 10 years, and potentially longer.

In the years ahead, Carriere Family Farms will undertake the significant task of converting many of its older orchards into new plantings, but Carriere noted that this is a slow and expensive process.

Aerial view of Carriere Family Farms.
Carriere Family Farms processes close to 50 million pounds of walnuts annually and markets for approximately 100 growers in Northern California. Photo courtesy of Carriere Family Farms.

“We hope to continue to grow our walnut processing business to hit what we feel is a sweet spot for volume, between 85 million and 90 million pounds,” he said. “Pasteurization and retail packaging are on our radar in the next three years as well. We also recently began processing inshell pecans and hope to become a resource for local growers for processing and marketing pecans.”

Its commitment to sustainability and technological advancement positions the farm to not only meet but exceed the evolving demands of the global walnut market.

A graduate of the University of Miami, Keith Loria is an award-winning journalist who has been writing for almost 20 years. View his recent writing at keithloria.contently.com.


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