Regional farmers align to grow cucumbers for pickles

JOHNSTOWN — Mario Herrera is a perfect example of what a little determination can accomplish.
Herrera is well respected by his friends and neighbors. Because of this they trusted him when he decided to form a cucumber-growing local cooperative to produce pickles for Dean Foods.
With the goal of growing a higher value commodity, Herrera contacted the giant food products company in 2000. Dean?s officials were reportedly excited about the possibility of growing pickles in the area because of the freshness they would provide to the company?s processing plant in La Junta. Previously, the plant received cucumbers solely from growers in Texas.
?This is huge for us,? said John Torrez, Southwest regional field manager for Dean. ?At the time, our La Junta plant had zero cucumbers from Colorado ? fresher cucumbers produce higher quality pickles.?
Dean Foods is one of the largest specialty foods producers in the world and is known for its branded and private label products like Meadow Gold, Horizon Organic and Dean?s. The company?s La Junta plant produces 3.5 million cases of pickles a year. It also produces relish, and brined peppers.
Herrera stood by his dream and convinced growers and Dean Foods of a win-win situation all around.
?This has been a four-year process,? Herrera said. ?I figured a co-op would be better than trying to grow individually. So the co-op was formed to buy harvesters and try to make a go.?
The group consists of 16 growers in Johnstown, Berthoud and Milliken with 320 acres planted in cucumbers. Herrera hopes to have an average harvest of 200 bushels per acre. Harvest will begin in mid-July and Herrera said he hopes ?we have enough to pick until the end of August.?
Herrera?s co-op will receive a contract price for the cucumbers, although the parties declined to disclose the value of the contract.
This is not his first attempt at growing cucumbers. Herrera grew them from 1991 to 1998, but stopped because of increasing labor costs and a declining local market.
?At that time they were processed north of Greeley, but the company (Dean Foods) pulled out,? he said.
In the past cucumbers were considered a great crop for migrant families to harvest because they could follow the growing season across the country and young children could pick the crop. New technology allows the growers to harvest mechanically.
Cucumbers were a large crop for Larimer County from 1920 to 1990 when Dreher Pickle Co., followed by Western Food Products, owned a pickling plant near downtown. At one time the plant produced 600,000 cases of pickles a year and employed 25 permanent and 60 seasonal workers. The plant was closed in 1988.
Herrera wasn?t alone in his quest for information about starting a co-op or growing cucumbers; he enlisted help from Ernie Marx, an agriculture and natural resources agent with the Colorado State University Cooperative Extension service.
?I don?t know any other way this would have happened except for Mario,? Marx said. ?People trust Mario and he did his homework. They trust him because he is not superfluous; he is who he is, which is persistent. He worked hard on this for three years and didn?t give up. Right now it looks like it is going to pay off.?

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