50 Years of Gratitude: How the Pines Community Built an Enduring Brand

This October, Pines turns fifty.

We’ve spent much of this year telling our story: Dr. Schnabel’s research, the Cerophyl years, and the two friends from Kansas who started it all. This week we want to do something different. We want to say thank you, because Pines was never built by one or two people. It was built by a community.

Thank You to the People Who Believed First

In 1976, Ron Seibold and Steve Malone didn’t have a bank loan or a wealthy backer. What they had were more than 200 ordinary people who invested an average of about $200 each. Most of them didn’t expect to get rich. They believed in organic farming, in sustainable communities, and in helping feed people who were hungry.

They chose the name “Pines” after the pine tree, a symbol of the peace found in nature. As the old saying goes, one pine tree does not a forest make. Those first investors were the forest. Many of their families are still part of the Pines story today.

Thank You to the Stores That Took a Chance

When Ron and Steve hit the road in 1976 and 1977, most store owners had never heard of wheatgrass. One of the first who said yes was Margaret Isley at the original Vitamin Cottage in Lakewood, Colorado. She bought 24 bottles, taught two young founders about the natural food business, and went on to become one of the great leaders of the natural foods movement. Her family’s business grew into Natural Grocers.

By the end of that first trip, more than 2,000 stores in 35 states carried Pines Wheat Grass. Ron and Steve made it happen by sleeping at campgrounds and cheap motels and walking into one store after another. To every independent natural food store that has given Pines a spot on the shelf since then: thank you.

Thank You for Helping Build Organic Farming

When Pines started, there were no national organic standards. Any product could call itself “organic,” whether it was or not. Ron and Steve saw that as a real problem for honest farmers and for customers.

In the early 1980s, Ron served on a five-person committee that helped establish the standards of the Kansas Organic Producers. Pines operated under those standards. Later in the decade, Ron and Steve joined other natural food leaders in pushing for national rules. That effort helped lead to the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, the law behind today’s USDA organic program.

Pines was growing organically long before there was a national seal to put on the label. Over the years we have converted more than 2,000 acres to organic farming and helped other farmers convert 2,000 more. We’ve also returned one of our fields to native prairie. Every customer who chose organic greens made that work possible.

Thank You for Helping Us Give Back

Our founding investors asked Pines to do more than sell a product, and our customers have made that possible. Over five decades, Pines has donated several million dollars’ worth of wheatgrass to feeding programs for malnourished people in the United States and around the world. Through our foundation, we have also given hundreds of thousands of dollars to environmental and organic farming causes.

That giving began with the people who first believed in us. It continues because of every bottle you buy.

Thank You to the Families Who Made Pines a Habit

Some of you found Pines in 1977. Some of you found us last month. Many of you have told us that your parents kept a bottle on the counter, and now you do too. Elite athletes, busy parents, retirees, and longtime natural food shoppers have all written to tell us how Pines fits into their daily routines.

That loyalty is the best review a company can get. Since 1976, customers have kept coming back to the same deep green color, the same whole-food nutrition, and the same oxygen-free amber glass bottle.

Thank You to the People Behind Every Bottle

Every bottle of Pines passes through the hands of the people who plant in the fall, watch the fields through the winter, harvest at the jointing stage in spring, dry and mill the greens, and seal each bottle without oxygen. Many of them work in the same facility near Lawrence, Kansas, where Dr. Schnabel once did his research. They carry his 1937 standards forward every day.

The Next 50 Years

Fifty years ago, Ron and Steve made each other a promise to build something that would last. It did, because thousands of people decided to build it with them.

From all of us at Pines: thank you. Thank you for eating your greens, for sharing them with the people you love, and for being part of the forest. We can’t wait to see what the next fifty years bring.

Celebrate 50 years with us. Shop Pines Wheat Grass: the original green superfood, grown the same way since 1976.