Producer

Murray Family Farms, based in Bakersfield, California, traces back four generations on founder Steve Murray's side of the family. After graduating from UCR with a Plant Science degree and working in agricultural consulting, Steve started a beekeeping operation in 1983 that funded the purchase of a small table grape farm, which later evolved into a specialty and heirloom fruit operation after an offer to grow new cherry varieties. Steve and his wife Vickie built the business from a roadside tent into a fixture at the Santa Barbara Farmer's Market, eventually earning recognition for their cherries and expanding into a full retail operation with a farm kitchen ("Cal-Okie Orchard Kitchen") known for its Okie Fry-Pie and Harvest Festival events. The farm is now a multi-generational family operation: Steve focuses on experimental growing techniques and community leadership roles, Vickie runs the culinary side, their son Steven Jr. travels globally collecting rare fruit varieties and manages one of North America's largest rare fruit collections, daughter Katie oversees HR for the farm's 90+ employees, and their son Sean, who worked across the retail and market side of the business, who passed away shortly after his 26th birthday is remembered as part of the farm's ongoing story.

Murray Family Farms describes its approach as growing produce the "right way" through a combination of regenerative and organic methods. Regenerative farming, as they define it, is a holistic approach that regenerates soil health and fertility, enhances biodiversity, and promotes carbon sequestration, working with nature through practices like minimizing soil disturbance, using cover crops and crop rotation, and cutting back on synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, with their own soil augmented annually by hundreds of thousands of pounds of composted organic matter. Their stated goal is passing the land on in as good or better condition than they found it. On the organic side, they emphasize picking fruit at full ripeness rather than just maturity (accepting more crop loss as a tradeoff), and point to outside research, including a Washington State University taste study and a 2014 British Journal of Nutrition review, as support for organic produce having better flavor and higher nutrient content. They also link the practice to protecting local water quality by reducing chemical runoff into the county's water supply.