Year 1976: PINES became a Bicentennial Company in Kansas

The year 1976. The USA marked its bicentennial, Jimmy Carter brought home-spun charm to the Oval Office, and Rocky inspired us. In Kansas, the citizens re-elected Bob Dole to the Senate. The Kansas City Royals lost a playoff heart breaker to the Yankees in the bottom of the 9th inning.  Out in in Hays, Kansas, a new force in organic farming took root.

Year 1976: New Kind of Farmers
Take Root in Kansas

That’s right, Ron Seibold and Steve Malone decided to grow wheatgrass the way nature intended in the year 1976. They founded Pines, the first green superfoods company for the natural food market. They realized that this simple food had the potential to provide balanced nutrition for millions of people. Profits earned would provide funds to purchase land in danger of development and to establish organic farming communities and wildlife refuges. Basically, they wanted to treat the land with respect and to promote its health. More than 100 people chipped in an average of $200 each. They invested not because they expected big returns but because they believed in the goals.  They choose the Pine tree as the name and logo because it represents the peace found in nature. One of the fields Pines returned to native prairie. For more than 40 years PINES' WCEF pursued the goal respect for the planet & stopping hunger. Our record of contributions shows our commitment.

Returning Land to Organic
from Chemical Abuse

Ron and Steve saw this as an opportunity to pursue their dream of building a business while staying connected to the land they grew up on. They wanted to work to develop a sustainable organic community. In the years since 1976, Pines grew from a two-person business in a van to an world wide company shipping cereal grass and other green foods to over 25 nations and to thousands of stores around the United States.  Despite advances in harvest, packaging and bottling. Pines Wheatgrass remains a nutritious source of greens.. Pines follows an 80-year tradition established by the food scientists who provided the research for Ann Wigmore and other authors. Using the same soil and the same methods taught by the scientists, Pines provides convenient, powerfully nutritious, organically grown foods that thousands of people use every day because it makes them feel better, plain and simple.

Pines Opposes Destruction
of our Water Resources

Why does our being the first green superfood company matter to you? Because it means that, like the products we grow and package, our roots are strong and healthy. Our belief that the need for the finest nutrient-rich cereal grasses that Mother Nature has to offer will continue to grow. Certainly it has stood the test of time. Pines remains as the only company to package in oxygen-free glass bottles instead of plastic. Pines remains the only 100% organic wholefood wheatgrass grower in Kansas. We remain the only Kansas grower with dryers built only for organic human food, not pesticide-based animal food. We remain the only ones growing all our corps in appropriate regions with plenty of natural rainfall. Pines remains opposed to abuse and contamination of the irreplaceable "fossil water" of the Ogallala aquifer.  It took tens of thousands of years to accumulate that water. In less than 100 years, that once-pristine resource became seriously depleted and poisoned. Dry land farmers ruined it to grow animal feed and GMO products such as ethanol.

The first PINES Wheat Grass bottle
from spring 1977

     The USDA says that 9 out of 10 people do not eat enough veggies.  Pines offer servings that are easy to consume and that cost considerably less per serving than other greens.  You can find Pines' green superfoods at a store near you with our locator.  You can also use our online shopping cart.