The King of Endives

The King of Endives
Local businessman is only American grower of plant
By Richard Bammer
Posted: 09/23/2009

There is the story of how Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, working out of a garage in 1939 in Palo Alto, laid the groundwork for Silicon Valley.

Then there is the tale of Richard Collins, whose path to become the endive king of America started in his bedroom closet in Sacramento before his passion became a multimillion-dollar business in Solano County.

A high school senior in 1978, Collins - president of California Vegetable Specialties in Rio Vista, the only American grower of the somewhat bitter, edible lettuce-like plant - worked as a dishwasher at an upscale Sacramento restaurant. One night the owner, who was preparing a special repast for a birthday party, a meal which included endive, told him the Belgian vegetable was $4 a pound (remember: gas was 90 cents a gallon then). He told the wide-eyed youth there was money to be made by anyone who could grow and market it in the United States.

"That was how I was exposed to it," said Collins, sitting in his second-floor office at the production facility on Poppy House Road, where he and more than three dozen employees grow three varieties of the pricey vegetable in cool, dark rooms year-round.

After some research on how to grow endives, Collins went to the Lagomarsino Seed Co. in Sacramento, bought some chicory seeds, planted them, harvested the carrot-shaped roots, then placed them in his darkened bedroom closet, forcing the endives to grow.

"If he (the restaurant owner) hadn't said anything, I don't know what I'd be doing today," said Collins, whose firm last year shipped some 2,000 tons of endive and had revenues of nearly $7 million.

But after growing endives in his parents' home, he retained the vision of one day growing them and owning his own business, a dream that never faded, even as he worked to earn a bachelor's degree in agricultural and managerial economics from University of California, Davis.

Before graduating in 1983, Collins spent most of 1982 in Europe, either working on or visiting endive farms in Belgium, France, Holland and Spain. "I got my degree at U.C. Davis and my education in Europe," he said. There, he learned from one of the last in a line of notable endive masters, Jean Pauwels.

Returning to California, he began commercial production on 5 acres in Allendale, then relocated to Elmira and eventually, in 1995, built a 30,000 square-foot growing facility in Rio Vista. Along the way, he collaborated with Marc Darbonne, president of S.C. Darbonne, for more than a century a plant producer in Milly-la-Foret, France. In 1987, they incorporated.

The story of endive - What is it? How is it grown? Why is it expensive? Where does it come from? - is complex but Collins makes it easy to understand through a series of explanatory panels and photographs on a wall just off the company's first-floor offices. Vertically stacking the chicory roots (grown in Turlock and southern Oregon), he grows endives hydroponically (without soil), in water enriched with nutrients. At 4 to 6 inches, they are handpicked, trimmed, packed and shipped to mostly American markets but also to a few in Asia.

While it has a reputation - an inaccurate one, said Collins - for being an acquired taste, endives also suffer from a reputation of being an expensive, elitist food. True, it is often served raw or braised at upscale restaurants but its price is justified as it is "labor-intensive (six to seven months from seed to shipping) and capital-intensive to grow," Collins noted.

"It's a two-stage process, with lots and lots of complicated, risky steps to usher it through," he explained. "The maximum that one chicory root will produce is one endive at best. The (growing) process is fraught with risk. Besides, it's a white vegetable. Growing a white vegetable is hard, subsequent to packing ... if there's a blemish on a white vegetable, it shows up right away, as opposed to, say, Romaine lettuce. It's tough to grow."

But just because it is difficult and tricky to grow does not necessarily equate to it being overly expensive, he noted, adding that the price of some appetizer crackers easily runs more than $6 per pound. The price of endives, thus, is "very competitive" pound for pound, he asserted. Besides, he added, endives are known to be nutritious, containing only 15 calories each.

Opening the door to one of four cold, slightly humid, darkened storage areas, Collins, flashlight in hand, cast a light on hundreds of 3-by-4-foot wooden growing trays, each filled with several hundred sprouting roots and stacked to a 20-foot ceiling. It's a sight that makes it easy to imagine how his company packs and ships 400,000 to 500,000 boxes, 10 pounds each, per year.

Collins said his business is among America's most unique. His assessment includes the fact that used chicory roots are not discarded. They and other waste are used as cattle feed.

Still, he noted, the lingering recession forced a cutback in his company's production, as people reconsidered buying nonessential foods and ate less frequently in restaurants. At one point, he offered some employees buyouts. Each refused, choosing to work 30-hour weeks instead.

Collins has noticed a slight uptick in demand for endive, saying new and larger orders are beginning to trickle in.

In his 31st years as a grower, he said more than once he and wife, Shelly, "have quit, but we came back the next day."