Recent News Articles about PINES from Local and National Sources
The recent article above published in 2011 and the one below published in 1997 represent two articles that point out how Pines grows wheatgrass and alfalfa in Kansas on 100% organic farms. They explain how we grow only organic foods. In more than 40 years, we have never used chemical poisons on our fields. As a result, Pines opposes the "dual farming" practices by the other grower of whole food cereal grass and alfalfa in Kansas, who grows both organic food for humans and poison-based food for animals. 
Consequently, we built our dryer for the exclusive use of organic, non-GMO human food, not animal feed. Pines opposes the waste, massive depletion and chemical contamination of the Ogallala Aquifer caused by this other grower. This fresh water resource required tens of thousand of years to accumulate clean "fossil" water. In less than 100 years it has become depleted and contaminated. Pines opposes this other grower's destruction of that once-plentiful resource by pumping massive amounts of irrigation water for more than 70 years to grow food for confined animals slaughtered by the meat industry. For more than 70 years, they have dried the feed with facilities designed for pesticide-based animal feed. They use this same pesticide-based equipment for a few weeks per year for "organic" human food.
Here is Another Article That is Not So Recent
AS SEEN IN The Lawrence Business Ledger/ Written by Billie David (Edited to remove statements that no longer apply and references to a perfidious former employee) Though it may be news to many of us, green foods are all the recent rage in the natural foods industry. Cereal grasses, which include young wheat, oats, rye and barley plants, are more nutritious than the grains harvested from the mature plant. The grass stage of the grains are their most nutritious stage. It’s the most nutritious product you can grow. For those who are concerned about the consequences of eating grasses, they are quite digestible. You receive natural nutrition like the best spinach salad you’ve ever had. It comes in a form that the body recognizes. It’s a vegetable.The History of Cereal Grasses as Human Food
Cereal grasses began as a vitamin supplement in the 1930’s, before multi-vitamins replaced them. Part of the philosophy behind this is that the USDA recommends three to five servings of vegetables a day. Few Americans actually meet that standard. This is a very convenient way to get the vegetable nutrition you need in a very quick way and a very concentrated way.How Pines Grows and Harvests its Wheatgrass
Pines International plants their own winter wheat to produce their wheatgrass products. They plant in the fall, and it grows through the winter. The roots get their nutrition from the soil, so the longer you can keep it in the soil, the more nutritious it will be. Then, Pines harvests the wheat grass at a specific point of development called the jointing stage. That stage represents the point when the plant contains the most nutrition. That's because it has stored up food for the wheat head. Once the wheat head starts to grow, the nutritional level drops rapidly. Pines harvests the grass quickly, drys it and then packs into nitrogen-filled bags. They store the bags at -20 degrees C. to prevent loss of nutritional value. Then, as needed, they remove the bags from cold storage and make it into tablets or powder. The put the finished product into earth-friendly nitrogen-flushed amber glass bottles to further prevent nutrition and color loss. That kind of loss always occurs when competing companies package in fossil-fuel-based plastic tubs that easily allow oxidation and nutrition loss as well a potential petrochemical contamination.
Other Products from Pines
Pines also offers barley grass, which is identical to wheat grass in nutritional value as well as alfalfa. In addition, the company processes and markets spices and herbs grown organically by other farmers in order to help make the organic foods industry more economically feasible for the smaller farmers.
Pines' Recent and Early History
Ron Seibold and Steve Malone, the co-founders, founded Pines in 1976. They actually started the company to promote organic farming and wildlife refuges. It began in western Kansas and moved to Lawrence because Lawrence was a community more supportive of organic farming. In keeping with its original purpose, Pines has contributed funds to protect and preserve land by converting it into organic farmland and wildlife areas. And, in keeping with its philosophy of providing nutritionally sound food in an ecologically responsible manner, Pines donates some of its products to malnourished people around the world.Pines Supports Local & International Feeding Programs
Thus, Pines annually donates to famine relief program, This year they will probably give between $300,000 and $400,000 worth.” The company gives through an organization called Feed My People, and much of the food this year is slated to go to Liberia. This year’s donations became delayed by a recent fire. When the company came to Lawrence, it started out at a building at 23rd and Haskell. Although it built new buildings north of Lawrence, about a month ago, the old building east of Lawrence burned to the ground. Pines stored 45,000 pounds of cereal grass in that building. They had earmarked it for famine relief. Even so, the company still plans to provide cereal grass for the food program. The manufacture of green foods is a rapidly growing industry in the U.S. It’s an enormous business. Z much larger understanding of health and nutritional issues now exists. Further, as baby boomers reach middle age, they look for natural ways to stay healthy. As a result, Pines found a good time to be in the natural products business.
Recent Addition to the Product Line
The company’s created a new product called "Mighty Greens." They launched it a year ago. A drink powder consisting mainly of wheat grass and alfalfa with stevia for a sweeter flavor, Mighty Greens provides a great way to add more greens to the diet. Pines took its name and logo from the international symbol of peace in nature - the pine tree. Pines plans continue with its original mission into the future. The goals of the company have not changed in 21 years. They seek to remain at the forefront of the industry’s technology as well as be leaders in corporate integrity. (Note the Business Journal published the original unedited article in 1997. The company has continued with its values and goals for more than 40 years)