KB Farms
ON THE MOVE
AUGUST 13 -19, 2021 | PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE
The annual Gerbera Festival was held in June as a drive-thru event.
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Room to grow
Kitayama Brothers adapts as flower market continues to shift By JOHANNA MILLER
T
his year Kitayama Brothers, a cut flower grower based in Watsonville, is celebrating its 73rd year in business. Not long after World War II, brothers Tom and Ray Kitayama landed in San Francisco’s east bay and began working for Yoshimi Shibata and Dan Shinoda, two famous flower pioneers of the time. The Kitayamas decided to jump into the industry themselves, opening up a greenhouse in Union City with younger brothers Ted and Kee.
The business grew, expanding to secondary locations in Brighton, Colo. and Watsonville. By the late 1970s, Kitayama had become the largest greenhouse grower in the United States. But the industry changed. Large amounts of offshore growers gradually began infiltrating the market, and a good portion of hyper-local and large U.S. growers alike began losing business. Kitayama found themselves having to adjust, looking for ways to incentivize customers and stay afloat. In the early 2000s they scaled down to just their Watsonville location (KB Farms), and began focusing on different types of flowers. These days, they grow
