Pulling an apple out of the beautiful produce display at the grocery store is a different experience than it used to be. Along with an ever-greater variety of apples available at even larger stores, they often include some indicator of whether or not the produce is local, even displaying the name of an orchard or a picture of the family that owns it.
At Kiyokawa Family Orchards, based in Parkdale at the foot of Mt. Hood, some of the fruit makes its way down the mountain and into the displays at Market of Choice. The store and its customer base have embraced the more specialized heirloom varieties grown on the 207-acre spread of orchards, packing operation, and farmstand owned by Randy Kiyokawa, a third-generation farmer in the area.
If a critical piece of farming is having a way to sell your product to consumers, we might say that the story-telling or education around farming is a bonus: not always necessary, but a nice reminder to non-farmers that food doesn’t come from grocery stores. Grocery stores are an essential part of the food web, of course, but only part of the story.
At Kiyokawa Family Orchards, for instance, the fruit doesn’t always end up at a grocery store. Besides the U-Pick areas where tourists from all over the world can pluck an apple straight from the tree, the different places where you might spot a Kiyokawa product (and not just an apple) is a testament to diversification and finding new ways to connect.
A Farm in the Cloud(s)
While the fruit itself needs more sunshine than clouds as it grows in the rich volcanic soil near the dramatic slopes of Mt. Hood, Kiyokawa and his team of around forty-five employees rely heavily on a different sort of “cloud” to keep track of the business.
Digital communication between the Parkdale operation and the many destinations for the farm’s produce involves an online spreadsheet system. “One of our farmers markets in Portland can fill out the day’s numbers and remaining stock,” says Kiyokawa, “in the morning, you’ll have someone in Parkdale pulling the right boxes for the delivery truck to drive into the city.”
With over a hundred varieties of apple, many of them heirloom varieties that are seventy-five to a hundred years old themselves, and then a number of other pears, cherries, peaches, pluots, and “pluerries” besides, tracking everything by location and availability is a challenge.
Then, consider the number of destinations sending purchase orders or relying on up-to-date availability information: twenty-eight restaurants and bakeries between Portland and Mt. Hood, thirteen farmers markets, two school districts, several subscription services, the aforementioned grocery chain, and of course the long-running farmstand and U-Pick operations in Parkdale.
The orchard needed a comprehensive tracking to keep up with the constant stream of data coming in and going out. A cloud-based system keeps all the employees, whether they’re picking and packing in Parkdale or helping with digital marketing in Portland, on the same page.
Pushing through Tough Times
Like many farming families in Oregon, the Kiyokawas set down roots and built up their business in the face of unexpected challenges.
Randy Kiyokawa’s father Riichi started farming on a plot of Hood River land he earned through work for nearby lumber yards after emigrating from Japan in 1905. While World War II interrupted the work of many farming operations in the United States, Riichi and his family lost their land when forced into an internment camp along with other Japanese-Americans. In 1951, Riichi’s son Mamoru returned to the Hood River Valley with his wife Michiko, whose family had also been detained at Tule Lake. While they were among some Japanese-American families to have land returned to them, the Kiyokawas went on to purchase a 25-acre orchard in Parkdale around which the current operation has grown.
Later challenges led to new chapters for the farm. Soon after Randy Kiyokawa returned to the farm to help his family after attending Oregon State University, the Alar Scare of 1989 forced many apple-farming families out of business. Although the Kiyokawas never sprayed Alar, the media scare depressed sales nationwide and Kiyokawa pivoted, selling Red Delicious apples to local families with a sign outside the barn reading “Apples 5¢ a Pound.” Parents asked if their children could pick from a Golden Delicious tree, too, starting the U-Pick and farmstand era of Kiyokawa Family Orchards. Soon after, Randy removed three acres of older pear trees and planted twenty-eight varieties of apples. Since then, the offering has increased to 120 varieties of apples.
The hop from a local farmstand into farmers’ markets in Portland happened with the help of Rossi Farms in the 1990s. Joe Rossi had bought four or five boxes of apples a week from Kiyokawa, which always sold out at his own stand. Kiyokawa remembers, “One year, Joe said ‘you know, you should just do this yourself–it’ll be more work for you, but it’ll be more profitable for you.’ Joe even gave me the tent, gave me the scales, even gave me the staff members. I really owe the Rossis a huge gratitude.”
One market in Portland soon turned into several, and exposed Kiyokawa to the world of city restaurants and bakeries. “Chefs and sous chefs would be going [to the farmers markets] and bringing back some of our fruit, which was amazing compared to the store-bought stuff,” says Kiyokawa. Eventually, the restaurants would strike deals to buy directly from the farm, and as a sous chef at one restaurant moved up to a head chef at another, they introduced Kiyokawa fruit to new kitchens.
That side of the business took a major hit in 2020 with the pandemic-related closures, some permanent, of many restaurants and bakeries. Although Kiyokawa is once again selling to an impressive list of establishments, the 2020 and 2021 seasons saw a huge drop in sales and the farm looked to another outlet: selling their apples as add-ons to community-supported agriculture (CSA) and subscription boxes like Milk Run. As the pandemic restrictions eased and sales picked back up to normal at restaurants and bakeries, Kiyokawa kept selling to the local CSA market.
“We’ve been fortunate to find some of these markets and they’re willing to pay the price that helps us survive,” says Kiyokawa. The CSA services and their devoted clients see the value in extremely local and special produce, part of the legacy of Portland being an early adopter of the “local and sustainable” food market that wanted to know more of the stories behind their food and were willing to pay extra for it.
Connecting People and Food
While someone at the dining room at The Nines Hotel in Portland might see Kiyokawa Family Orchards listed in an artisanal dish, students in Portland Public Schools and David Douglas Schools also get access to the quality produce through the Farm to School (F2S) program. Says Kiyokawa, “We have interest from others depending on the Farm Bill and if they’ll have funds to get farm-direct fruit.”
Keeping the farm connected to its community remains a priority for Kiyokawa. The farm participates in many fundraisers where programs can buy a box of apples or pears at a heavily discounted price and then sell it to support their local scout troop or sports team. The popular program has been going for years and is really only limited by the timing of the fundraisers and the availability of the picking and packing crew at Kiyokawa’s. When the crew in Parkdale is focused on getting the crop in, with picking happening in the mornings, the packing time in the afternoon is dedicated to the highest priority buyers that keep the operation running.
If it seems like the business revolves around keeping a lot of balls in the air, or maybe just fruit in the delivery trucks, it’s worth noting that it’s Kiyokawa Family Orchards. The name refers to the whole family, including the parents who started it, the siblings who still help, the children who grew up there, and perhaps now even the families of workers that Randy Kiyokawa enjoys seeing grow up nearby as well. There are no farms without people, so whatever complexity happens on a spreadsheet, the relationships between farm, community, and customer remain strong.
By Allison Cloo
Header photo credit: Shawn Linehan