Doc’s Organics opens packing shed
B organicRAWLEY — An idea that first was seeded in the mind of the Dockstader family last year, came to fruition Thursday as the family who owns the organic citrus company Doc’ Organics inaugurated the first-ever packing shed in the Imperial Valley.
The new $7 million facility is located east of the city of Westmorland and the facility will create 20 jobs in its first phase.
“I’m so excited we got this point and will finally be able to sleep tonight. It’s going to be great,” said Gina Dockstader, co-owner of Doc’s Organics.
Doc’s Organics currently operates more than 630 acres of organic citrus in the Valley. Because the company produces organic citrus, their product can only be packaged in packing sheds that only handle organic crops.
As of now, the company has to send their product to four different packing sheds out of the Valley and into neighboring counties for their product to be packaged and labeled, which created a logistical problem.
“Right now there really isn’t one shed that can handle all of our produce,” she said.
So, in order to solve the issue, toward the end of last year they began to consider in developing their own facility that could package and label their organic fruits to better manage their product, exploiting a niche in the local industry and bringing a sense of pride into the community.
It wasn’t until January when the Dockstader’s finally decided to go for it.
We said let’s consolidate and start doing our own, we have enough fruit, we can support it,” Dockstader said. “It was a bit crazy. I’m still not sure how we managed to get this building up so quickly.”
Although the facility itself is ready to go, Doc’s Organics is awaiting the final permits for its new facility to become fully operational, which should happen in the next few weeks.
One of the main reasons that helped the Dockstader’s move quickly on their latest project was in part due to the support the company got during these last few months. Gina said her husband, Dusty Dockstader who was also the main contractor put in a lot of hours and called in many favors to make the project a reality.
In addition, Doc’s Organics was able to secure a low-interest loan from Imperial County through its Agricultural Benefit Program totaling $1 million as well as a $495,000 grant from the Imperial Irrigation District through its Local Entity Competitive Mitigation Program in order to secure funding for the $7 million facility.
“I’m really excited seeing this packing shed for organic fruits which will be grown and packed in the Imperial Valley,” said District 4 Supervisor, Ryan Kelley. “It’s one more step to having more of the finished products come out of our county. We have a lot of commodities in our county and I’d like us to develop more of that.”
He added that he hopes more finished products that are already produced in the Valley get exported to allow people outside the area to realize how vital the Imperial Valley is. Kelley noted that the Community Benefit Program was established to aid these types of projects that create local jobs and have additional funding sources in place.
“We are happy to have been in a position to assist them and make the process a lot easier for them … this is how we like to see this business development programs to continue to work,” Kelley said. “I’m very happy a local family has been tasked with this development, it’s a great business for our county that will create jobs and hopefully it’s something that we can replicate in the future.”
Although packing shed jobs are typically seasonal, Gina said their goal is to keep the employees year-round and be tasked with other duties in the ranch and orchards during the time the packing shed is not operating.
“My goal is to keep them year-round, we have too many seasonal jobs in the Valley. We need every job we can get,” she said.
Even though the facility has yet to begin processing and packaging their arrays of organic fruits, the Dockstader’s are already thinking ahead. Gina said their plan includes to add cold storage to their facility which can enable them to do dates and even at a later point consider packaging organic fruits from other growers in the Valley.
“We have gotten so much help from everyone. Everyone has gone above and beyond, I’m very grateful and very appreciative of everyone that has helped us and I’m really looking forward to it,” Gina said.