About Us
Our Mission
Frog Hollow Farm supports the health of life forms both big and small, from our trees and the crew that cares for them down to the billions of microorganisms that reside in our soil. As organic and regenerative farmers, we go above and beyond organic requirements to ensure that the health and productivity of our land is not only maintained but improved upon and continually revitalized. You’ll taste the care we put into our land when you bite into our exceptionally delicious fruit. We are committed to allowing our fruit to meet its full flavor potential and bringing the tastiest fruit available.
Our Legendary Fruit
Our 280-acre farm is home to thousands of trees that produce peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots, apriums, plums, pluots, mulberries, pears, olives, persimmons, quince, apples, meyer lemons, blood oranges and more. We are certified organic with CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers) and are committed to regenerative practices.
Everything we do on the farm to care for our soil, trees, and team translates into high nutritional value and unparalleled flavor in our fruit. Our highly skilled team picks our fruit tree-ripe, allowing for maximum flavor and nutrients to develop. Because our harvest and fruit-packing crews are so skilled in handling especially ripe, delicate fruit, the “brix” level (a measurement of sugar and nutrient development) of our fruit is off the charts! When soil and crops are healthy, so are people. And fruit lovers enjoy tastier, more nutrient-dense food whose production has not harmed land or humans. Learn more about our legendary fruit here.
Our History
Farmer Al began farming in 1972 with two papayas, a shovel, and some Dixie cups. In two hours he had planted 300 seeds in his backyard in Honolulu, Hawaii and started his first farm. He didn’t end up farming papayas, though. In 1976, he moved back to California where he had grown up and planted his first peach trees on just 13 acres of bare ground outside of the Bay Area. For the first few years, Farmer Al grew corn as he waited for his peach trees to grow. As a new farmer, he followed the advice of the local agricultural extension program, who recommended the use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. That never sat well with him, so after going to conferences and meeting farmers in the burgeoning organic movement, he was inspired to begin farming organically in 1988. It was a new beginning for the farm: a new way of farming, new markets, a new name, and a new label. The irrigation canal that runs along our land had so many frogs in it, at night the sound of all that croaking was deafening. And so the name “Frog Hollow Farm” was born. Our label is inspired by the “Wind in the Willows,” an allegorical tale of life on a river.
Today, Frog Hollow Farm is a 280-acre regenerative organic farm located in Brentwood, California. Everything has expanded: the land, the people, the products, markets, the delicious food and our community. The list is long but a few of the highlights over the years have been creating an e-commerce business, building a kitchen on the farm to create small-batch gourmet products, expanding into farmers markets across the Bay Area, buying more acreage, and beginning our Community Supported Agriculture program. Lastly, is our amazing compost operation. We produce 3,000 tons of compost a year out of our own fruit waste, tree prunings, our neighbors' manure, decommissioned boxes, and coffee grounds. Everything gets used here.
Our Team
We have a diverse team of farmers, chefs, customer care, and sales and marketing professionals who are committed to our mission. We all take pride in our work.
In addition to our regenerative growing practices, we believe in fair labor practices. Many farms rely primarily on seasonal hires, and though our ranks swell during the harvest season as well because we tend to our trees by hand and have a commercial kitchen on the premises, we provide year-round employment and housing for many local residents. Monthly participatory wellness workshops keep our entire team engaged in cultivating health and wellness as individuals and a farm community.
Our Commitment to Averting Food Waste
We optimize our harvest to find a use for all of the fruit we grow as only 2% of fruit is cosmetically perfect. Our best-looking fruit that is firm enough to have good shelf life and good flavor goes to grocery stores, most of which are local. Beautiful fruit that is ripe enough to have great flavor and survive shipping goes to our online customers. Ripe fruit with minor blemishes makes up the bulk of any harvest and much of it goes with us to Bay Area farmers markets and into our Community Supported Agriculture program. Our Farm Kitchen and fruit drying operations turn fruit that is too damaged or ripe to eat out of hand into amazingly delicious products that preserve the flavors of the harvest. We also regularly donate hundreds of pounds to the Contra Costa Food Bank. All fruit that is too damaged to use in our kitchen goes into our farm's compost piles where it is recycled into nutrients that feed our soil and trees.