The Agricultural Justice Project and Organically Grown Company proudly announce the domestic fair trade certification of two LADYBUG brand farms, Gathering Together Farm in Philomath and Spring Hill Farm in Albany. Read More

2011 OGC Sustainability Report Highlights

Local & Independent Ownership: OGC is locally owned by 20 Oregon farms and 26 employee shareholders. In 2008, we established an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”), to widen the company ownership to include all 195 employees.

Organic Farming: Over 96 percent of the food we distributed in 2011 was organic.  We have been certified by Oregon Tilth as a handler of organic produce since 1998. Organic farming is a holistic production management system which promotes and enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biological cycles and biological activity within the soil.

“GROW” Program: Starting in 2005 OGC has purchased all bananas exclusively from Organics Unlimited who operates the “Giving Resources and Opportunities to Workers” (GROW) program.. As of 2011, OGC’s sales of GROW bananas have resulted in donations of $548,196 to educational programs and dental and vision clinics in communities in southern Mexico.

Local Farms: Over the last few years, OGC has teamed up with the Agricultural Justice (AJP) Project, a nonprofit group that has created Fair Labor Standards to pilot their new “Food Justice Certified” label on Northwest farms.  In addition, OGC has coordinated with Salmon Safe, a nonprofit certification that assesses on-farm biodiversity, water conservation and quality management to assess practices on all 41 LADYBUG brand farms.

Charitable Contributions & Donations: OGC is committed to the communities we serve, each year we donate at least 2.5% of the previous year’s profits to charitable causes. In 2011, OGC’s cash and in-kind donations were 2.66% of previous year’s net profits to over 225 community organizations and schools. Additionally, OGC donates pallets of edible but unmarketable organic fruits and vegetables almost daily. Since 2001, OGC has donated 3,013,725 pounds of food to the Oregon Food Bank and Food for Lane County.

Energy & Waste Reduction: Over the last five years, OGC has reduced waste to the landfill by 75%, through extensive recycling and composting programs. We are on a constant quest to reduce the amount of energy we use to deliver product to our customers.  In 2011, we reduced the amount of energy used to move each box of produce through our facilities by 2.5% compared to the previous year.

Renewable Energy: OGC purchases 100% renewable energy at all three of our facilities in Eugene, Portland and Kent. Most of the funds are invested in wind power projects in the Columbia Gorge, a small amount goes to solar, low-impact hydro and biomass projects. In 2011, OGC operated our entire fleet of trucks on a 42% biodiesel blend, supplied by SeQuential Biofuels www.sqbiofuels.com , which derives 95% of their biodiesel from cooking oil, turning a waste product into clean non-polluting fuel.

Hybrid Truck Technology: OGC is one of the first companies to make deliveries in a Kenworth T300 hybrid-electric heavy duty truck that saves 10-30% on fuel and runs on a 99% biodiesel blend.

Employee SMART Commuting: OGC has a program to encourage employees to bike, walk, carpool, or use alternative transport to work. In 2010, 46% of employees participated in the program, saving 49,787lbs of carbon dioxide (the major greenhouse gas contributing to climate change) from entering the atmosphere (equivalent of taking 5 average US cars off of the road for a full year).