Brita Lundberg Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine.
Today's guest is Brita Lundberg, a fourth generation farmer and the Chief Storyteller at Lundberg Family Farms. Brita joins me to talk about her family business and what it's like being a young farmer today. We also talk about the product. Her family is famous for, rice. From sushi rice to jasmine rice to black pearl rice, so many varieties. I'm sure lots of you have seen Lundberg in your favorite grocery store or are already a fan. Rice is something almost all of us around the globe eat and that lots of us love. But I'm going to guess you don't know too much about how it's grown. Well, I'll speak for myself. I knew next to nothing but Brita is here to illuminate us. She talks about regenerative farming, how her family has saved tens of thousands of ducks in their fields, and what it means to “read the rice.” She also shares the emotional decision to leave her career in book publishing right here in New York City and return home to work on the family business. Brita is very special as you're about to learn. Stay tuned for our chat.
Today's episode is presented by Kerrygold. Have you noticed that butter is having a moment? I've seen handbags sculpted out of butter. Little couches made from butter pats, tiny butter cherubs, even butter colored nail polish and fashion. The world is butter obsessed. But you know who loves butter More than most? The folks at Kerrygold, they've been perfecting their craft for decades using milk from Irish grass-fed cows to create their famously rich, creamy golden butter. There's a reason Kerrygold is beloved by everyone from home cooks to the world's top culinary creatives. It's just better butter. Kerrygold salted pure Irish butter has a butterfat content of 80%, while the unsalted version has a butterfat content of 82%. And that beautiful yellow color? It's thanks to beta-carotene found naturally in milk from grass-fed cows. Want to get in on the fun, get yourself some Kerrygold and whip up some flavored compound butter, fill some fancy butter molds or sculpt one of those gorgeous butter mounds for your next dinner party or get together. Visit kerrygoldusa.com to learn more, get recipes, and find a stockist near you.
If you'd like to hang with team Cherry Bombe and the Bombesquad, we've got lots of events coming up. There's Jubilee Wine Country taking place at the beautiful Solage Resort in Calistoga, California on the weekend of October 26th and 27th. Come learn from incredible folks like Dominique Crenn, Tonya Holland, Jeni Britton, west~bourne's Camilla Marcus and Vintner's Daughters, April Gargiulo. We'll also be in Chicago tomorrow and then in Boston on October 23rd with She's My Cherry Pie host, Jessie Sheehan to celebrate Jessie's new baking book. Tickets for all three events are on sale right cherrybombe.com, and we'd love to see you.
Now let's check in with today's guest. Brita Lundberg. Welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Brita Lundberg:
Thank you. So excited to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
Everyone loves rice, but I'm not sure everyone knows how it's grown. Can you tell us?
Brita Lundberg:
Absolutely. So it's kind of funny, I joke that with educating consumers, we have to start with rice is a plant. Because a lot of people don't realize that rice is a plant, and if you think about it makes sense, right? Rice is sold in the dry goods section of the grocery store next to pasta and plant-based rice. But rice is a plant. It grows in the ground and the way that we grow it matters. And so the way that we grow it in California is in large fields or patties that are GPS leveled, and we have this super heavy adobe clay soil that holds water like a bathtub. So you can think of our fields like bathtubs with water in them, and the rice will grow through the water.
And so in the springtime, we make sure those fields are super level because we have to manage that water. We fly the seed onto the fields and that's how we plant rice with planes. And then in our family, we use deep water to drown weeds and then dry up our fields to dry up the weeds instead of dousing our fields with chemicals. So most of what we're doing during that summer growing season when we're growing rice is managing that water to kill weeds so that we don't have to douse our fields with chemicals.
Kerry Diamond:
How interesting. I think I just learned 10 things I did not know. And now I understand why your title is Chief Storyteller. Lundberg is known for doing things differently. What are a few things specific to your family?
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah. Well, first off, there is a real family and a real farm behind Lundberg family Farms. It's not just a brand name. We are actual family and actual farmers, and we grow a lot of the rice that we sell, which is unusual. Often brands are sourcing ingredients from all over the world. We grow our own rice right there in Northern California in the Sacramento Valley, and we are fully vertically integrated, which means that we do everything from developing the seeds and the varieties of rice that we're going to grow, to growing the rice, to milling the rice, to packaging the rice, to marketing and selling the rice. So it all happens right on site in Northern California.
Kerry Diamond:
And you grew up in this whole world?
Brita Lundberg:
I did.
Kerry Diamond:
You were born into this family?
Brita Lundberg:
I was, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you always know that rice would be your life?
Brita Lundberg:
Oh, no. No. So I actually ran away from the farm for about 10 years.
Kerry Diamond:
Not literally. You didn't throw all your things in a bag and run away?
Brita Lundberg:
Well, I came here to New York.
Kerry Diamond:
You did.
Brita Lundberg:
I did. Yeah. I always loved spending days in the fields with my dad and my brothers and my uncles and my grandpa, but I was always a bit of a reader and a writer and a dreamer. And I didn't know if there was going to be a role for me at the farm. My brother always wanted to farm, and I just didn't think that was going to be a viable option for me. And the brand was much smaller when I was growing up, and so I came to New York and I worked in book publishing for several years, helping authors tell their stories just not too far from where we're sitting right now.
Kerry Diamond:
Who did you work for?
Brita Lundberg:
I worked for Simon and Schuster.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, how funny, it's like you could throw a rock.
Brita Lundberg:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
And hit Simon and Schuster.
Brita Lundberg:
Yep. I loved it. I loved working with authors. I loved living in the city, but my dad started sending me videos from the fields of a flock of pelicans and then one day or a turtle the next. And it was around the time that we were starting to lose the second generation of our family. So my grandpa and his brothers and their wives. And the third generation, my dad and his brothers and their cousins were starting to talk about retirement. And the fourth generation, my brothers and my cousins were starting to have kids, a fifth generation.
And I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that this fifth generation would never know the founders of our farm. And I wondered who was going to tell them all the stories that I loved hearing around my grandparents' kitchen table growing up. And so I looked left and looked right and realized that might be me. And so I applied for a job in marketing on the website without telling anyone and crossed my fingers and hoped that HR would call me, and they made me wait and sweat it out for like two weeks.
Kerry Diamond:
What name did you apply under?
Brita Lundberg:
Oh, I used my own name.
Kerry Diamond:
But you didn't even tell your father?
Brita Lundberg:
No, I think I told my parents after I had applied.
Kerry Diamond:
You could have gotten HR in trouble if they had missed that or decided whoever this Brita person is, she's not quite right for the job. But that's a funny way to do it. And what happened?
Brita Lundberg:
They put me through my pieces. I had a few rounds of interviews, but ultimately got the job and I started as a copywriter. I wrote some of the copy that you see on the back of our packaging. My role just kept evolving because I had this sort of unique skill set where I had honed my storytelling skills, but I also had grown up on a farm and I understood how our farming practices worked and how they led to a high quality premium product, so I could help connect marketing with the farm and tell that story and help reconnect people with where food comes from.
Kerry Diamond:
What years were you at Simon & Schuster?
Brita Lundberg:
I was there from 2017 to 2019, and I worked at a literary agency before that, so I was in book publishing in New York for about six years.
Kerry Diamond:
I'll be right back with today's guest.
The fall issue of Cherry Bombe's print magazine is finally here and guess who our cover star is? It's Jeni Britton of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, the artisanal ice cream company that changed the game. This might just be our coolest cover yet, and I can't wait for you to read all about Jeni and her entrepreneurial journey. Also, we have a bonus cover. It's the delightful Abi Balingit of The Dusky Kitchen and the award-winning cookbook, “Mayumu.” This issue is dedicated to the creative class and highlights innovative and imaginative folks in and around the world of food, including fashion designers, artists, photographers, and of course lots of pastry chefs. If you're a subscriber, your copy will be in your mailbox very soon. If you aren't a subscriber, head to cherrybombe.com to snag a copy or check out our list of retailers to find Cherry Bombe's print magazine at a store near you.
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. It's Jessie Sheehan, the host of She's my Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I have big news for you. My new cookbook, “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy, Snackable Bakes” is now available. This is my first savory baking book and I'm so excited to share it with all of you. It features a hundred easy peasy baking recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and of course snacking. From sage butter scones to smash burger hand pies and tomato Za’atar galette. You'll also find six of my essential savory baking hacks, including how to make my magic melted butter pie dough and the quickest and easiest caramelized onions.
My cookbook tour is underway and tickets are on sale right now at cherrybombe.com. Thanks to everyone who joined me in New York and San Francisco. I'll be in Chicago on Tuesday, October 15th and Boston on Wednesday, October 23rd and I can't wait to see you. Thank you to Kerrygold and King Arthur Baking Company for supporting my tour. You can click the link in the show notes of this episode to order the book or pick up a copy at your favorite local bookstore. I hope you love “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy, Snackable Bakes” as much as I loved writing it.
Kerry Diamond:
This must've been a tough decision for you to leave New York behind and go back to the farm.
Brita Lundberg:
It was scary. Yeah, honestly, some days felt like I had no idea what I was doing and thought, "Okay, maybe I'll move back and catch my breath and come right back to New York and come right back to book publishing. And there are still days that I think about that. But most family businesses fall apart between the third and fourth generation. That transition is really difficult. We have a large family. There are about 40 of us who own the company together and who farm together, but there are only four of us who work full-time at the company. I wanted us to stay a family business, and if you're going to stay a family business, you've got to have family involved. I also wanted to help carry the story forward for the next generation, not only of our family, but also of Lundberg consumers, of foodies, of people who have forgotten where food comes from, how it's grown, and why that matters. It just kind of snuck up on me. I've been back on the farm for about five years now.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Do you miss New York?
Brita Lundberg:
I do miss New York. It's really fun to be here, and I miss being able to disappear into a city and be anonymous.
Kerry Diamond:
You could definitely do that here.
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah. It doesn't happen. A small farming community of 200.
Kerry Diamond:
But do you miss the subway? Do you miss pizza rat? Do you miss the Yankees? All those things?
Brita Lundberg:
I miss it all, but I also love the farm. There's nothing like going out to the fields at the end of the day and getting into hip waders and out in the fields and reading the rice my dad and I call it.
Kerry Diamond:
I haven't visited yet, and I really hope I get to one day, but I've seen the pictures. Our team was out there and it's just spectacular.
Brita Lundberg:
It's really special.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so zen. I feel like that's the word that kept popping in my brain.
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah, there's something about it that is just really magical. I think part of it is just that reconnection with nature. I remember growing up, my dad worked a lot because a farmer and nature doesn't wait, and so you really have to, if you're going to be a farmer, you have to really partner with nature and match nature's timing, and I think there's something really grounding about that.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. You said two things. I want to go back to. Hip waders. Some folks, you might not know what that is, maybe you know somebody who fly fishes or maybe you are a fly fisher woman out there, but a hip wader. Tell us what a hip wader is.
Brita Lundberg:
- Yes. A hip wader.
Kerry Diamond:
Is like, sounds like a hip waiter. W-A-D-E-R, not W-A-I-T-E-R.
Brita Lundberg:
That's right, yes. So hip waders allow you to wade in the water, so they are sort of like you're over the knee boots, but they are like rain boots and you can get in the mud in them. You can trek out into the flooded fields and read the rice.
Kerry Diamond:
That was the second thing I wanted to ask about. Reading the rice. I mean, that sounds so poetic.
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah, isn't that beautiful? My dad talks about it that way. Typically, what you would do if you were a conventional rice farmer in California, and conventional meaning not organic or regenerative, organic, is that you would fly on a chemical herbicide to kill the grass weeds and fly on a chemical herbicide to kill the aquatic weeds. In our regenerative organic fields, we don't do that. We're not using chemicals. We have to find another way to manage the weeds in our fields and make sure that the rice can compete.
What we do is just after planting, we raise the water level just high enough to drown the grass weeds, but not so high that it harms the rice. And you have a 24 to 48 hour window where the weeds will die and the rice will survive. And physiologically, the rice and the grass weeds are very similar.
And so what you have to do is you have to be present in your fields and read the rice and look for the signs that the rice is maybe getting stressed but will survive. And so you have to make sure that the fourth leaf of the rice plant gets through the water to get a breath of air while the fourth leaf of the grass weed stays under the water and drowns. And when it's just about to die, it'll kind of corkscrew. And so you want to look for that corkscrew on the fourth leaf, and you want to also make sure that the fourth leaf of the rice is getting through the water.
Like I said, it's a 24 to 48 hour window, which means you've got to be out in your fields, you've got to be present. You've got to be pulling up rice plants and seeing where the leaf is and which leaf it's pushing, my dad says. So we call it reading the rice, and I think there's something really meditative about it too.
Kerry Diamond:
That could be the name of the family memoir.
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah. Reading the rice.
Kerry Diamond:
When you write it, because I know you're going to do that one day. Tell us what regenerative organic farming is.
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah, so it's a really good question because I think a lot of people don't realize that regenerative is not legally defined. It means different things to different people, which means that you could ask 10 different people what regenerative means, and you'll get 10 different answers, if not more. And I think a lot of people are surprised to find that regenerative does not require organic. You might see brands or companies making regenerative claims, and they could still be using chemicals on their fields, even glyphosate.
But in our family, we believe that regenerative starts with organic because quite frankly, we don't see anything regenerative about using toxic chemicals. When we use the word regenerative, we use it specifically in reference to regenerative organic certified, which uses USDA organic as a baseline and then goes above and beyond with criteria for soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness. And what I love about it is that it is, I think, the only certification that recognizes the interconnectedness of everything, that the way that we grow and produce food is connected to the surrounding ecosystem and connected to community and social justice and social fairness, and that the food system doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Kerry Diamond:
You talked earlier about the multiple generations in the Lundberg family. Your family has worked the same farmland for 85 years, which is incredible. What is the Lunberg mission?
Brita Lundberg:
So our mission, our founding philosophy, if you will, is to leave the land better than we found it. And those are words from my great-grandpa Albert, he and my great-grandma Frances left Nebraska in the wake of the Dust Bowl, which was an environmental disaster caused in part by short-sighted farming techniques that stripped the land of its topsoil, which is that uppermost layer of soil that produces something like 95% of the world's food. And during the Dust Bowl, it blew away from the Midwest. And so in 1937, Albert and Frances Lundberg left Nebraska and brought with them their four young sons, a flatbed Chevy truck, a farm tractor, because they were worried that the tractors in California would be no good, and crucially a new farming philosophy, which was to leave the land better than they found it.
Kerry Diamond:
That's incredible. Where is your family originally from?
Brita Lundberg:
They were living in Nebraska at the time. We're of Swedish heritage. And like I said, Great-Grandpa Albert and Great-Grandma Frances lived in Nebraska and then moved from there to Richville, which is a tiny little farming community.
Kerry Diamond:
The mission you told us about extends to taking care of the wildlife in the surrounding area. This is a fascinating part of the Lundberg story. What is that all about?
Brita Lundberg:
California rice fields are home to more than 200 species. I think the last count I saw was like 230, and our fields in particular are part of the Pacific Flyway, which is a major migratory pathway for birds. Each year, Audubon estimates a billion birds travel the Pacific Flyway, which is staggering, but that number actually pales in comparison to the number of birds that used to travel the Pacific Flyway. And they have been losing habitat due to development, and now more than 95% of California's natural wetlands that those birds depend on have disappeared.
But here's the cool part is that our fields can actually replicate those natural wetlands. And so each winter we flood a portion of our fields to provide food and habitat for thousands, if not millions of migratory birds. And our fields are just filled with them like ducks, geese, swans, sand hill cranes, all sorts of birds. And they will eat leftover rice in the fields. They'll eat weed seeds, which we love as regenerative organic farmers, and they will eat aquatic invertebrates. And then the cool part-
Kerry Diamond:
What's an aquatic invertebrate?
Brita Lundberg:
Oh, like bugs. They love bugs
That's a fancy name for a bug. Okay, go it.
And then their feet will press the rice straw left in the fields after harvest into the soil, which helps turn it into mulch for the next year's crop. And of course, they offer us natural fertilizer, which is a fancy word for something else.
Kerry Diamond:
And this all goes back to the idea of regenerative farming.
Brita Lundberg:
Totally, yes. It goes back to the idea of regenerative organic farming, which is recognizing that our fields are part of a broader ecosystem that really, especially in California, we want to be farming in a way that provides multiple benefits so that we're using water not just to grow food, but also to provide habitat for hundreds of species.
Kerry Diamond:
As part of this, you've created a duck rescue program. What is that?
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah, so we also grow cover crops on a portion of our fields during the winter. Cover crops are like oats, vetch, and fava beans.
Kerry Diamond:
Say that one more time. Oats...
Brita Lundberg:
Oats, vetch and fava beans.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Vetch, I'm not familiar with.
Brita Lundberg:
They're essentially crops that we grow for the health of the soil instead of the table. My dad likes to call them green juice for the ground because they restore nutrients to the soil.
Kerry Diamond:
Your dad's got all these good sayings.
Brita Lundberg:
He does, yeah. My dad likes to call cover crops green juice for the ground because they restore nutrients to the soil. They'll take nitrogen out of the air and put it in the soil, which allows us to skip synthetic fertilizers, which are a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Kerry Diamond:
Your dad really is a poet.
Brita Lundberg:
He is. Those cover crops also provide nesting habitat for ducks who have lost a lot of their natural breeding habitat. They will nest in our cover crops, and so each spring before we start our tractors to prep the fields for planting, we partner with our friends at California Waterfowl Association to search the fields for nests and rescue any eggs by hand and transfer them to a local hatchery to be incubated, hatched, raised to about five weeks of age, and then released back into the wild. If we weren't doing that, they would potentially be run over by our tractors, which nobody wants. And so we go to the extra step or extra trouble of rescuing the eggs by hand, because again, it's just in recognition of the fact that our fields are part of a broader ecosystem, and we've been doing this since the early nineties, and in that time, we've rescued an estimated 30,000 duck eggs.
Kerry Diamond:
That's wonderful.
Brita Lundberg:
It's a duck ton.
Kerry Diamond:
When are the ducks released?
Brita Lundberg:
They are released about five weeks after they're hatched.
Kerry Diamond:
And have you taken part in that, in both parts, the egg collection and The duck release?
Brita Lundberg:
I have, yeah. So egg rescue is one of my favorite things to do as a kid. You go out to the fields and it's like a giant Easter egg hunt. We used to invite local schools to come help us with it. The kids will line up and hold onto a rope, and we have these cans affixed to the rope to make a lot of noise. You walk through the fields, and when you get close to a nest, the hen will fly off of the nest. And then you carefully search for the nest, rescue the eggs, put them in an egg carton lined with feathers to keep them warm, and then transfer them to the hatchery where they're incubated and hatched and raised.
Kerry Diamond:
That's fascinating. Then the release of the ducks, members of our team were able to do it, and I was very jealous that I wasn't out there, but it really looked like a beautiful day.
Brita Lundberg:
It really is beautiful. I like to release the ducklings with my nephews and niece too, which is really fun. And we just released them back into the fields because our fields are perfect habitat for them. They have lots of things to eat, lots of rice to hide in, and lots of water to swim in.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, it sounds like an amazing practice because obviously you could just destroy the eggs and the nest, and I'm sure a lot of that takes place on other farms, so I'm happy to hear.
Brita Lundberg:
What's cool is that we've been able to share the practice with our neighbors. So it's actually kind of transformed the landscape of the Sacramento Valley because it used to be standard practice to burn the rice straw left in the fields after harvest. You can imagine what that did. It just filled the valley with smoke, which wasn't good for people, it wasn't good for the birds. But we were able to partner with other farmers in the region, even farmers who aren't organic or regenerative organic, and really help change the common practice to not burning that straw and then rescuing eggs from the fields.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's beautiful to hear. Lundberg grows an impressive variety of rice from black pearl to basmati, Jasmine, even arborio rice. I'm curious, how many varieties in all do you grow and do you have a favorite?
Brita Lundberg:
So we grow 17 varieties officially. That's the number that you'd find if you counted up our varieties on shelf or on the website. But we have an on-site nursery where we develop and improve varieties of rice for quality, for taste. Does it smell good? Does it cook up consistently? All of that, but also for compatibility with our regenerative organic farming practices. In our nursery, we have probably thousands of varieties that we haven't commercialized yet because we're really just sort of looking for a needle in a haystack. Looking for the highest quality varieties to bring to our customers, but also for the varieties that will thrive in the regenerative organic system.
Kerry Diamond:
We haven't talked about climate change, but the amount of things that the farmers in California are dealing with. Drought, all the fires. So I'm sure a lot of that research into the different varieties is also what can withstand all these changes, climate wise.
Brita Lundberg:
Absolutely. We look for shorter season varieties, varieties that we can produce in a shorter amount of time to require fewer resources. We also look for varieties that will jump up through the water when we're doing deep water or be able to withstand dry up, and that's really critical because our system of dry up helps reduce greenhouse gas potential by 49% relative to continuous flood. And so all of these seemingly granular changes or differences between our rice and conventional varieties really make a difference.
Kerry Diamond:
I have my favorite health food store in Carroll Gardens where I get your rice from. I've always noticed how many varieties, but when we started working together, I saw how many were on the website, and I was like, there's no way they grow all of those. They must import some of them or get them from somewhere else. But no, you grow all of them.
Brita Lundberg:
We grow all of them. So we grow all of them. In California, we've got our internal farming operation that is run by Lundberg Family Farms, and that grows rice on family-owned land and leased land. And then we also work with a network of like-minded independent family farmers, many of whom are Lundberg family members, like I am a grower.
Kerry Diamond:
You are?
Brita Lundberg:
I am.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, you didn't tell us that.
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah, so I grow rice with my-
Kerry Diamond:
You're hiding out. You're keeping this from us.
Brita Lundberg:
I'm an undercover farmer. Yes. I grow rice with my brother, and we sell our rice to Lundberg Family Farms. And so there are several family members who do that. My dad, my uncle. But then we also work with a select group of non-Lundberg family members. And really that's because if you want to farm organically, you have to have a relationship with a drying and storage facility and a mill and a warehouse that can handle organic rice. So when we first started farming organically in the sixties, there were some other families in the area who wanted to farm organically as well, and we were really only able to do it because we did it together.
Kerry Diamond:
You didn't tell us your favorite yet.
Brita Lundberg:
Oh, my favorite. How could I choose a favorite variety of rice?
Kerry Diamond:
I knew you were going to say that.
Brita Lundberg:
I grew up on short grain brown rice. That was the first variety that we sold under the Lundberg name. I probably ate that every night growing up. So I have a special place in my heart for our short grain brown rice. But I also really love our sushi rice because it is just so clean and crisp. And I remember when I was little, we grew sushi rice for bento boxes on the Japanese bullet trains. So they would come visit us and inspect the fields and try the rice, and I remember them saying that they were looking for sushi rice that tasted as pure as a glass of water, and that's why they chose our rice. So I just always think of that description in reference to our sushi rice.
And then we also have a black pearl rice, which is a black rice, obviously, and it's a variety that we developed in our nursery, and it's high in anthocyanin antioxidants, which you would typically find in blueberries and blackberries. We look for varieties that when they're soaked in test tubes, we'll have the darkest color water because that pigment is tied to the anthocyanin antioxidant content. So you look for the darkest water knowing that that will have the highest concentration of anthocyanin antioxidants. Sometimes that anthocyanin antioxidant content is associated with a bitter taste, but our black rice actually has a very smooth taste, so you can just kind of swap it in for short grain brown rice, and it adds a bit of drama to the plate.
Kerry Diamond:
We'd love a bit of drama.
Brita Lundberg:
We love a bit of drama.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I love the sushi rice, but I'm definitely going to try black pearl next. So Lundberg's expanded over the years in terms of its product offerings. You've got rice mixes, rice cakes, rice chips. I was curious if this is in response to the demand for gluten-free options or just folks loving rice in all its forms?
Brita Lundberg:
I think part of it is just that we love rice in all its forms, and my grandpa was a bit of an eccentric and an inventor. He brought home a rice cake machine one day and convinced his brothers to let him try making rice cakes. So we started making rice cakes in the seventies or eighties, and we've made them ever since. We not only make the rice cakes ourselves, we make the rice cake machines that we use to make the rice cakes ourselves.
So there's a level of obsession there, I think with rice, but it's also about convenience that rice can take a while to cook, especially if you're eating whole grain varieties. And so we like to offer our consumers ways to eliminate some of that time and uncertainty around cooking rice. So we have rice and seasoning mixes that are perfectly seasoned out of the box and ready to go in a matter of 15 to 20 minutes. We even have 90 second rice, which we source from farmers in Thailand. That's the one exception of the rice that we don't grow ourselves, is this super high quality rice from Thailand that we've been partnering with farmers there to produce for 15 years just because the minimum order quantity is to make that pouch of microwave rice. Those are too high for us in the U.S. right now.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about your eccentric grandpa.
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah, so my grandpa, Harlan. Lundberg family Farms was really built by the second generation, my grandpa and his brothers, Eldon, Wendell, Harlan, and Homer. They each went their own way for a time to college or the military, but ultimately they decided to come back to California to farm together. They each kind of had their own area of expertise. Eldon was the oldest, and he was kind of the leader, if you will. Wendell was kind of the finance guy and the drying and storage guy. My grandpa Harlan and my great uncle Homer were inventors, experimenters, innovators.
So they developed a lot of the farming practices that we use today, but then they would also try to develop equipment to get after those weeds. And so they would do crazy things like buy a street sweeper and customize it to try to sweep the weeds out of the fields. They were just obsessive and almost maniacal about it, and they would just be like, "Oh, if we just did it a little bit differently, maybe it would work." And so they were just always innovating, always trying new things. Some of it was crazier than the other, but they developed our system of drying up the fields to kill weeds. And decades later, that's still our best form of defense against aquatic weeds, and it's a practice that we share with other organic and regenerative organic farmers in our region.
Kerry Diamond:
Brita, do you have any female farmer friends across the country?
Brita Lundberg:
I do, yes. It's been really fun to meet other female farmers in the U.S. And elsewhere. My friend Benina is from Burroughs Family Farms, and she runs her family's farm. They do almonds and almond butters, eggs and all sorts of things. They have a regenerative organic certified farm not far from ours. My friend Heidi from Diestel Turkey, and my friend Sorella, who I'm here with in New York this week, she is not a farmer, but works with thousands of farmers through Simply. They do regenerative, organic, certified quinoa and spices and all sorts of things.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a beautiful brand. If folks don't know about it, should look into it. Oh, that's so exciting. I'm happy to hear you have a network. I mean, everybody knows this, it's not easy to be a farmer today. And like we discussed, you're not just dealing with the regular nonsense that comes with every job, but you're dealing with mother nature and climate and all those things that just complicate it beyond what a lot of people can even handle or predict.
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah. My dad and I have noticed, particularly over the past 10, 15 years, there are no normal years anymore. We either have years of drought or years of atmospheric rivers, and there seems to be no in-between anymore,
Kerry Diamond:
But you were still pulled back to it.
Brita Lundberg:
I was. Of course, part of that is personal. Of course, part of it is the family legacy and wanting to be part of that and carry it forward. But another part of it is this shift that I think that we're seeing in the food space where people recognize that historically, food and agriculture have been part of the problem, especially when it comes to climate. But it can also be part of the solution. I think that we're seeing a lot of energy around that. And of course, nobody wants to be part of the problem, and so I think that we see a decrease in the number of people who were interested in being part of agriculture. But now that there's this hope and promise of regenerative and regenerative organic agriculture, I think people are interested in being part of the solution. And so they come to food and agriculture in particular through the lens of climate or through the lens of sustainability or storytelling. It's just able to, I think, accommodate more interests and backgrounds and skill sets, which is exciting.
Kerry Diamond:
Any message you want to send to our listeners about supporting farmers, farms, how they spend their dollars?
Brita Lundberg:
Yeah. I think it's so easy to forget that the true cost of food and the true value of food go far beyond the plate, the future of our planet is at stake. I just always encourage people to get to know their farmers, find out where their food comes from, how it was grown, who makes it, and how it impacts the planet, and then vote with your dollars. But as my friend Paul Lightfoot has been saying this week from Patagonia Provisions, also vote with your vote.
Kerry Diamond:
Vote with your vote. Yes. Good reminder. Thank you for that. While we have you here, how do you make your rice? Do you do a rice cooker? You pot with a lid? What's your system?
Brita Lundberg:
I always recommend a rice cooker because it eliminates a lot of the uncertainty in cooking rice. I particularly love the Vitaclay rice cooker. I think there's something just really beautiful and simple about cooking rice in a clay pot. So our family is a big fan of Vitaclay. We also love the Zojirushi rice cookers, and some of those are crazy. They're like spaceships and they can do all sorts of things. So those are great. But you can always just cook rice on the stove with a pot.
Kerry Diamond:
That's how I do it. I should get a rice cooker because I know better, but I have a tiny kitchen. That's the other thing.
Brita Lundberg:
That's the thing. I never had a rice cooker in New York.
Kerry Diamond:
And if somebody wanted to get a recipe of yours, give me your best rice recipe.
Brita Lundberg:
Okay. So I love to do any sort of pilaf with our wild blend rice. Chef Marcella did this beautiful Morita wild rice with pistachios and apricots that I love.
Kerry Diamond:
Is that the one we're running?
Brita Lundberg:
Mm-hmm.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, fun. You can find that in our magazine.
Brita Lundberg:
It's so good. It's so good. You have to do it. But then I also like to just add rice to salads and soups as ways to add a little heft to your salad. And so I like to add our black pearl rice to just a simple farmer's market salad with whatever sort of produce I can find in season at the farmer's market.
Kerry Diamond:
Yum. I love a rice bowl.
Brita Lundberg:
Yes. You can't go wrong with a rice bowl.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Find a protein, roast some veggies. Make a cold dressing. Chop up some herbs. I love it. Brita, thank you. You're amazing.
Brita Lundberg:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
This was so fascinating. I learned so much. I want to go home and make some rice.
Brita Lundberg:
I love to hear it. Thank you so much for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Are you a subscriber to Radio Cherry Bombe? Was that a yes or a no? If it's a no, I would love for you to subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave a rating and a review. I would love to know what you think about the show and your suggestions for future guests. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is a studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu. Our content operations manager is Londyn Crenshaw, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.