Covilli’s Alex Madrigal
OPN Article October 8, 2020 Covilli Brand Organics is a 100-percent-organic and 100-percent-fair-trade produce company headquartered in Nogales, Arizona. Covilli currently has about 2,000 acres under management in the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja and employs 900 people during the peak season. Between its own farming operation and those of several partner growers, Covilli sells more than 30 million pounds of organic produce each year.
Alex Madrigal Covilli Organics
How did you get started in the organic agriculture/produce industry?
This was 100-percent a family endeavor. I’m a second-generation grower. My mother and father started this company back in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s as a conventional company (it wasn’t named Covilli at that point). They were conventional up until 1993 when they decided to get into organic because they just felt it was a better way of doing things.
I went to UC Davis for college, and before I finished my Ag degree, I went back home for a year and worked for the family company.
After I finished college, I jumped into the business wholeheartedly. We had two salespeople when I started in 2002, and one of them left unexpectedly, so my dad asked me, “Hey, we only have one salesperson now; I know that’s not what you wanted to do, but could you please help out?”
When did you become president and owner?
Around 2010 is when I started really running things on my own. My mother and father at that time were starting to make plans to retire. And then in 2014 when my father passed, that’s when I took over 100 percent.
Where are Covilli’s farms located?
Our own farming operation (we also have partner growers) is about four hours south of Nogales, Arizona.
In addition to our farm in Sonora, this summer we began a project in Baja on the outskirts of Ensenada. We trialed heirloom tomatoes because we’ve been trying to create a year-round program since 2012—and this year we succeeded!
And we also recently started a third operation that’s further south of Ensenada by a couple of hours, and our intention there is to grow product that mirrors our winter program in Sonora (in smaller proportion) so that we’re able to have continual year-round production on the veg side.
What are Covilli’s top commodities (in terms of the ones you grow yourselves)?
One of our main commodities is summer squash. We’ve been doing summer squash for decades. That was one of my dad’s “lucky” commodities—he loved growing squash. We grow quite a bit of zucchini as well as some yellow straightneck, crookneck, sunburst, and patty pans.
The other program that is pretty significant is brussels sprouts—both green and purple. We’ve been doing them organically since the late ‘90s. We have a pretty robust program.
Heirloom tomatoes are one of our signature crops as well. We’ve suffered quite a bit with the heirlooms over the years, just learning the different varieties and how they behave and how to pack them, so we’re very proud of our heirloom packs. It’s an extremely difficult crop to grow!
We also do other tomatoes (romas, grapes, and cherries), hot chilies (jalapenos, serranos, poblanos, Anaheims, Cherry Bombs, habaneros, Padrons and Caribes), winter squash (butternut, acorn, spaghetti, kabocha, and honeynut), green beans, tomatillos, and green bell peppers.
In recent years, you’ve started offering some tropical items—can you talk a bit about that program?
Yes, we’ve been doing limes, lemons, and pineapples for three years. We work right now with one pineapple grower in Oaxaca. He started his farm about 30 years ago, and it’s grown from one little 1-acre plot to about 50 acres.
We also do Valencia oranges. And those are from a group of three growers. They’re our neighbors in Sonora, and that relationship started about five years ago. We recently purchased a brand-new state-of-the-art packing line for citrus, so this year we’re going to be packing our own citrus in our packing shed here in Sonora. This means we’ll be able start our citrus program in November (whereas in previous years we’ve started in January).
Covilli Valencia Oranges