Fruit World: A Pair of Next Generation Farmers Playing The Long Game

On two separate farms in California’s Fresno Valley, two multi-generational fruit growers discouraged their teenage children from pursuing a life in agriculture. The work is demanding, they warned, and every decision is a gamble. The losses can be heartbreaking, and whether you win or lose, the hours are long. 

Heeding their family’s advice, C.J. Buxman and Bianca Kaprielian left their family’s farms to pursue higher education, leaving behind the fruit trees and packing houses.

Bianca dove into documentary film-making and then ecological horticulture before immersing herself in a career as an organic produce buyer, first for a wholesale distributor and then for a large grocery chain. She kept herself close to the farming community as she sharpened her skills as a marketer. 

C.J. completed his undergrad in Computer Engineering followed by an MBA in Accounting which led him to a desk-job that supported himself and the young family he had started. For the next seven years, C.J. put on a suit and helped clients with financial planning until he shared with his wife that he thought it was time to think about returning to farming.

With 20 acres of his family’s land waiting for him, C.J. rolled the dice and relocated his family to Reedley, CA. The move reconnected him to the Kaprielian family, experienced citrus growers who were instrumental as C.J. planted his first acres of organic Clementine mandarins. 

Meanwhile, Bianca was waiting for her opportunity to make her move. When her father called her with a chance to help market the family’s citrus, she knew it was her chance to reinvest. She agreed to return but insisted that her family begin to transition their conventional farms to organic.

Bianca waxes poetic about the land where she and C.J. would soon begin to build their company around. “The land here is delicious. The water is sweet. It’s a wonderful place to farm.” 

After twelve months of ideation C.J. and Bianca founded Fruit World Co. and began to build upon a shared vision for the kind of growers they aspired to be on land that is precious to both of them.

“You really have to admire those two,” Don Mayfield, OGC’s citrus buyer shares. “While a lot of young farmers grow vegetables as an easier way to get started, Bianca and C.J. committed themselves fully to citrus and stone fruit. It’s an incredible investment of time and resources before you see profits from tree fruit.”

“They’re both very hands-on,” Don continues. “It’s not unusual for C.J. to take his laptop and work from the back of his truck to be close to what’s happening on the farm.”

When putting into context the challenges of growing food, C.J. compares it to his background with computers. With computing, he says, you can write code and experiment with it 100 times in a single day. With farming, he says, you rely on year-long cycles to test if the chances you’ve taken were the right ones. 

“Assuming you start farming when you’re 20, that means you only get to experiment at most 70 times in your whole career,” C.J. exclaims. “It’s a life-long learning experience.”

Pete Wolf shows off his delicious grapes

While encouraging fruit from their own trees and looking for land to expand production, other growers started to knock on Fruit World’s door, looking for someone to help market their fruit. Growers were drawn to C.J. and Bianca as two like-minded people who intimately understood small farmers’ needs. In Fruit World, they found a unique opportunity: growers helping growers. Since its founding in 2017, the company has welcomed numerous small growers into the Fruit World family, including Masumoto Family Farm and Pete Wolf. These two well-loved small growers are known for their incredible stone fruit and grapes. 

In addition to a mandarin program that they feel is poised to be a serious player in the market for “‘small round orange things,” they’ve also expanded their specialty citrus to include Lemonade lemons, Buddha’s Hand, Finger Limes, and Mandarinquats. Along with apricots, cherries, and specialty grape varieties, including some incredible seedless Muscat grapes, Fruit World’s expansion prioritizes organic fruit with incredible flavor from family-run farms.

Of the acres that Fruit World maintains and harvests, it is their five acres of Page mandarin that they find most intriguing. Planted initially by C.J.’s father in 1999, the grove contains some of the most established Page trees in the valley. As old as they are, the trees are also some of the largest, so they draw visits from farmers embarking on their own Page plantings. They want to study their size, learn how to prune them and give them the best care. 

As Fruit World has grown, Bianca and C.J. have kept two tenets central to define how they do business: advocacy and transparency.

“We want Fruit World to be a home that fights for the family farmer,” Bianca shares, “so that they can make a good living and continue to keep the land in their family, to be farmed by their future generations. When we started Fruit World, it was just about us. But as we started to look around, we knew that this had to become more. It had to become about a way to make sure family farming thrives in California.”

“The word ‘fight’ strikes a chord with me,” C.J. echos. “We work really hard, and we fight for both our growers and our customers.” 

OGC’s Don Mayfield and C.J.

Alongside their tenacious fight on behalf of family farms, they recognize that it's also their desire to be transparent with both their growers and their customers that Bianca feels gives them an edge. She realized while working as a produce buyer that transparency isn’t always a guarantee, but that to her mind, it’s essential to maintaining strong relationships. 

“We have to be transparent about what the fruit is, or isn’t,” C.J. says. “There’s a perfect home for each piece of fruit, and we work to ensure we find it. It’s the best way to do business for the customer and the grower.”

With so many shared values, aspirations and goals, OGC looks forward to many more years to come working with Bianca and C.J. as we help them find the perfect homes for their delicious fruit!