Jordan is a Member of the Pines Family
This young woman’s mother is Tina, who is Pines’ company manager, Tina. For more than 30 of our more than 40 years, Pines owes much of its success to Tina. Two years after Tina joined Pines, Jordan was born. As is the case with other children Pines’ people, Jordan was often found at Pines while growing up. She helped her mother and other team members.
To the right are some of our administrative people. They are standing in our greenhouse next to an indoor waterfall. The company provides the greenhouse and water feature as a peaceful atmosphere, even in the coldest part of winter.
A Slow Turnover of Pines' Team Members
Tina is one of 30% of Pines team members who has been with the company more than 20 years. The average time for the other team members is more than 12 years. Pines’ has teams for farming, harvest, bottling, customer service and administration and are people often serve on more than one team.
All of us at Pines work together at the same location in a family atmosphere of support and mutual respect. Our nearest field, where we grow our products, is less than 100 yards from where we bottle and ship them. No other green super food company does it all in one location like Pines. No other green super food company has been producing green super foods sold in the natural foods market for nearly four decades. Pines Wheat Grass was the original green super food in that market. Most similar products to Pines entered the market in the last 20 years, because of our success and using the ideas that Pines' established. Most brands are mixture of ingredients all from different sources mixed together and packaged in plastic by third-party jobbers. With Pines we grow nearly all our own ingredients right next to where we package and ship them. The sense of pride that all of us share in working together results in the highest possible quality. That is why the natural foods market knows that Pines is the premier and number one producer of alfalfa, wheatgrass and other cereal grasses since 1976.
Pines Helped Write the Organic Standards Used Today
In the early 1980s, Pines’ people worked with other organic farmers throughout the United States in establishing the national organic standards. Those standards resulted in the National Organic Program with the USDA Certifed Organic logo that you see on products sold today.
Most of our fields were registered in that program shortly after it was established in 1990. Besides that, Pines had farmed those fields organically for more than a decade before that. All Pines products are also Non-GMO Project Verified. Moreover, the Non-GMO Project verified our alfalfa leaf through genetic testing as GMO free. Our organic alfalfa is the only Non-GMO Project Verified whole food alfalfa for humans.
Pines is a leader in the movement against GMOs and other farming using poisons from the major chemical companies. We maintain a Facebook page to educate consumers about the dangers of eating foods with those poison residues.
Our 1976 Goal of Expanding Organic Farming and Feeding the Poor
Pines International continues to be extremely active in the organic farming and anti-GMO movements. We provide financial support to dozens of organizations and charities that support sustainable agriculture and feeding those in need. Since 1976, Pines provided several million servings of greens to feeding programs in Africa, Latin America and the United States.
More than 100 shareholders joined together in the late 1970s to establish Pines. The average investment was $200. No one invested expecting big returns. They all invested because they believed in our humanitarian and planetary goals.
For more than 40 years PINES' WCEF priority has been environmental sustainability & preventing hunger. Our record of contributions shows our commitment.
Our contributions of leafy greens to those in desperate need for more nutritious food have helped people throughout the world. Through the years, several NGOs have distributed our leafy greens. They always write to tell us about the health improvements and tothank us. One group that distributed recent contributions recognized Pines as the "Humanitarian Company of the Year". This recognition was for our supplying thousands of pounds of cereal grass pellets and Green Duo capsules. The people ground the pellets with corn for tortillas and took the capsules as easy ways to eat more green. The gifts went to orphanages and feeding programs in Guatemala.
The worldwide "modern" diet does not contain enough dark green, leafy veggies. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) studied diets and found only 10% of Americans eat enough of them. With too few fruits and veggies, people do not receive protection from diet-related disease conditions prevalent today. That's why the USDA in its MY PLATE says they should make up at least half of our daily diet.
Following the Standards of the Father of Wheatgrass
We use the same location as Charles Schnabel during his research in the 1930s and 1940s. Many of our fields are ones where he grew and produced wheatgrass and other whole food cereal grass powders. Besides farming many of Schnabel's fields with the glacial soil he prized, we also still use one of his laboratories.
Schnabel supplied whole food grass powders to hospitals and doctors. They used them for the impressive body of research. That research served as the basis for books about wheatgrass. Those included ones by Ann Wigmore, Viktoras Kulvinskas and Steve Meyerowitz. In fact, Meyerowitz dedicated his book, “Wheatgrass: Nature’s Finest Medicine” to Dr. Schnabel. He called him “the father of wheatgrass". Another book you can read for free online is more scientifically-oriented. It has a 133-item bibliography and covers the research in greater detail.
Pines carefully follows Dr. Schnabel’s standards, including growing in glacial soils and harvesting the grasses at their peak. He also always packed them in amber glass bottles with special metal caps that allow him to remove the oxygen. We still use that safeguard to prevent the loss of nutrition that occurs with plastic containers and paper/plastic/foil packets.
We grow Pines Wheat Grass as Dr. Schnabel instructed. It grows through the often freezing temperatures of winter. We harvest at the special once-a-year jointing stage in the early spring that Schnabel found contained the nutritional peak. We never grow Pines Wheat Grass rapidly in unnatural and crowded conditions in trays. As a result, it contains four times more nutrition than tray-grown grass. It also doesn't contain the mold and often foul taste that comes from unnatural growing conditions.
The Green Duo Also Appeared to Jordan
Legend has it that Wheatgrass Willie and Alfalfa Allie appeared to Dr. Schnabel in his later years. They came to earth to respond to his concerns about the future of agriculture. They predicted the future pollution caused by a dependence on earth-destructive plastic and other fossil fuel products converted to poisons for farming. The Green Duo promised Dr. Schnabel that they would carry forward his vision. That resulted in farm families and individuals like Jordan and her mother who work each day with the Green Duo to fulfill Schnabel’s dream.