The cilantro field on the corner of Bradley and Betteravia roads is hands down the best-smelling field in Santa Maria. The sparkling green shoots emit an aroma that conjures up visions of mouth-watering al pastor tacos or carne asada burritos. It smells so good you almost want to grab a handful and eat it on the spot.
However, Santa Marians don’t have to resort to such petty theft because the cilantro grown in that field—and other local fields owned by Santa Maria-based Gold Coast Packing, Inc.—garnishes food sold at Taco Bell restaurants across the country. The company, it turns out, has been Taco Bell’s sole provider of cilantro for the past 18 years.
The popular herb was recently highlighted in a Youtube video for Cantina Bell, Taco Bell’s newest line of healthier, fresher menu options. In the video, celebrity chef Lorena Garcia visits a cilantro field in Santa Maria to talk to Gold Coast employees, including Victor Tognazzini and David Espinola, about how the essential ingredient is produced.
Garcia, who is best known for her stint on the TV show Top Chef: Masters, partnered with Taco Bell several years ago to create recipes that are more authentic.
“Cilantro is one of [Garcia’s] favorite ingredients,” explained Brent Scattini, Gold Coast’s vice president of sales. “She said, ‘I want to know where my cilantro comes from and how it gets to Taco Bell restaurants. I want to know how it’s produced and harvested.’”
So Garcia and a camera crew traveled to Santa Maria and filmed for three days in the fields. For the video’s kitchen scenes, they filmed at the Gold Coast subsidiary Costa De Oro Winery off of Stowell Road.
“The purpose of the video is to showcase one of the main ingredients of the Cantina Bell line and to show that it’s a fresh product grown right here in the Santa Maria Valley,” Scattini said.
In an e-mail to the Sun, Cantina Bell project lead Ellie Doty said Garcia “helped us fall back in love with our food and she became a catalyst for change around the preparation of many of our signature items, including our guacamole, pico de gallo, all-white marinated chicken, and more.”
Doty said the fast-food chain reached out to Garcia after receiving feedback from customers “who said their eating patterns were shifting from ‘food as fuel’ to ‘food as experience.’” She declined to comment on whether the new line of food was a response to a 2011 lawsuit alleging that Taco Bell’s meat contains less than 35 percent beef.
Gold Coast’s Scattini said the last time he checked, the video had 1.25 million hits and was going up by at least 100,000 hits a day. But the video isn’t the only newsworthy thing Gold Coast is working on.
The company, which pioneered the packaging of pre-washed, ready-to-use veggies, recently partnered with Babé Farms, another Santa Maria-based specialty produce supplier, to build a new 75,000 square-foot packing and cooling facility.
“We’re both cramped for space and doing multiple products out of multiple locations,” Scattini said. “We’re really excited because the new facility will increase our efficiency and create more space for cold storage and processing. It will make us more competitive companies.”
Located off of Blosser Road, Fresh Venture Foods will feature modernized systems for receiving, cooling, cleaning, sorting, and packaging, as well as on-site office space and a 10-bay loading dock. Scattini said employees plan to move in at the end of the month, with production starting as soon as possible.
“The new facility is going to allow both companies to expand space and production capacity by 50 percent,” Scattini said.
He explained that Gold Coast Packing and Babé Farms don’t compete directly, so the combined facility will only serve to help the companies grow. Additionally, it will make processing easier for retailers because they’ll only have to travel to one facility.
“We always want to grow and get bigger,” Scattini said. “When the economy took a dive, it really hurt the industry. But we have seen some parts grow and get their strength back.”
He said Gold Coast’s focus has mainly been on quick-serve and casual dining restaurants.
“But we definitely want to target more companies in the retail side of the business,” he said.
So Santa Marians may soon be able to purchase Gold Coast-grown cilantro and other veggies at their neighborhood grocery store.
Contact Managing Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 22-29, 2012.