KB Annual Benefit Event

This year, 40 Kitayama family members hosted over 1,000 people at our family business's 4th Annual Open House event on June 15, 2013. This free-admission event was open to the public as a one-day opportunity to see the behind-the-scenes workings of our flower farm and shipping warehouse. 

The day was filled with greenhouse tours, a professional flower design contest, food & wine, games, informational tables, and an abundance of local flowers and produce offered at great prices. Proceeds from all sales at this event benefited the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks (501c Nonprofit, www.thatsmypark.org). Palm, Sunset, Manresa, and Nisene Marks state parks are our nearby neighbors and we at KB are happy to work with FSCSP to put on a community event that can support the efforts to keep our local state parks and beaches clean, safe, and staffed with rangers and lifeguards. 

Since 1948, our company has been growing and shipping a variety of cut flowers to wholesale and large event florists. Our farm is located at 481 San Andreas Road in Watsonville, California. Please feel free to contact us at 800-472-4184 or visit us at www.kitayamabrothers.com.

Thanks for attending, and we hope to continue to improve this event. See you and your friends at the 5th Annual Open House in June 2014! 

Short film created by: Daniel Kitayama (footage and interviews) and Eileen Kitayama (footage & editing) at the 2012 and 2013 open house events. On-screen speakers: Robert Kitayama, Scott Kitayama, David Kitayama, and visiting members of the public. Background music: "Flor de Capomo" by Carlos y Jose.

THIS FILM IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES AND PROMOTES A NON-PROFIT COMMUNITY EVENT.

We're Only As Good As Our People

Jesus Lopez

This past Friday, we had a retirement luncheon for Jesus Lopez.  Jesus had been with Kitayama Brothers for 25 years and he was the grading room manager.   

Over the past 25 years, Jesus has ridden the roller coaster ride called the flowers business with Kitayama Brothers. 25 years ago, Kitayama Brothers Watsonville was the largest rose grower in the USA with 2 million sq. ft. rose. Today, we don’t grow a single stem of roses.   

Jesus has seen the transition from roses into what we are today, a large grower of a variety of cut flowers: oriental and asiatic lilies, gerbera daisies, lisianthus, snapdragons, gardenias, iris, stock, mini callas and a few other crops.

The challenge for Jesus was to learn the standards for grading a variety of different flower crops. Management often takes it for granted that staff will adapt to changes we implement and Jesus has always been able to train his crew to take care of whatever new crop we sent to the grade.   

We also must recognize the flower holidays that Jesus and his crew had to worked weekends and into the night to get the extra flowers graded for our customers.    

We want to thank Jesus for his work and wish him well as he moves to Gardnerville in Nevada.

 30 Year Employees

At the same luncheon, we took a picture of 6 employees who have been with Kitayama Brothers Watsonville over 30 years. They include Guadalupe Melendrez, Isidoro Mendoza, Manuel Cruz, Heriberto Garcia, Alfredo Ramirez and Jose T. Zavala.  

Hard work and flower knowledge was how we grew great flowers and grew our company over the last 30 years. The reason we still grow flowers in the USA is because our staff still carries on the tradition of hard work and flower knowledge from the old days.   

These gentlemen continue to be the messengers of this ethic. Kitayama Brothers must continue to look forward, but we should not forget who helped get us here.

If You Can Make It Here...

New York! New York!

This summer, my daughter Maya is spending 6 weeks in New York City in a Alvin Ailey Dance Program. I went to visit her and some other friends in New York last week. I haven’t been in New York for 2 years and it looked great. The streets were clean, all the bars and restaurants were full and bustling. You wouldn’t know Hurricane Sandy did so much damage just last year.  

However, there is one part of New York City that is not what it once was. The Flower District on 28th Street in Chelsea is a mere shadow of what it once was. I was told by John Kiamos of Associated Wholesale Florist, “There once were 60 wholesale florists and now there are 16 on 28^th Street.”  

I wasn’t there for business but I wondered where all the flowers come from. Manhattan has the best deli/mart flowers in the USA. All display very nice arrays of flowers. I can’t vouch for the freshness, but they are attractive. Where do they come from? I imagine a lot of flowers come in from out of town via trucks and the rest are drop shipped into flower users.

We will have to investigate. There is a good chance that Maya will go to college in NYC. I think we should start look into selling flowers there. I always like to visit where we have customers.

Family Business

Fun N Sun N Family: (NORCAL’s Family Business Seminar)

This week is NORCAL’s Fun N Sun Floral Convention in Santa Barbara. The rooms are all sold out and the tours are full. It's great to hear that so many customers have come to California to see what flower growers are up to out here.  

Kitayama Brothers is such a fan of Santa Barbara that we are holding our annual shareholder meeting in conjunction with Fun and Sun and approximately 35 of our shareholders will attend. And because most flower businesses are family businesses, NORCAL has developed a Family Business Seminar for Saturday 7/20 from 8:30am. It will include an amazing panel of Bob Wilkins (Delaware Valley Wholesale), Michael A Mellano (Mellano Company), Laura Shinall (Syndicate Sales), Ed Van Wingerden (Ever-Bloom) and Richard Armellini (Armellini). The panel will be led by Kurt Glassman of Leadership One.  

We believe there is no better way for our shareholders to understand family flower business than listening to the wisdom and experiences of the other leading flower families. Kitayama Brothers is sponsoring the event because we believe family business education is crucial to the future health of our company and many other flower companies. Please attend if you are at Fun N Sun. Flowers, family and business can be challenging, but when it works it can be incredibly rewarding.

KB showing at SAF Convention

Jimmy Zheng and Dave Kitayama

Jimmy Zheng and Dave Kitayama preparing some of the OUTSTANDING VARIETIES Dave will be showing at this years SAF Convention in Florida. We will be well represented with lilies, mini callas, gerberas, and lisianthus. Which will be the BLUE RIBBON winner this year?

KB's Lisianthus & Mini Callas

Kimiko Kitayama turns 90!

Kimiko and Robert Kitayama

This past weekend we celebrated my mothers 90th birthday.  At first she did not want a party, ”what’s the big deal about turning 90?”.  But it is a big deal and a lot of people wanted to share in her celebration.   As a little time passed she warmed up to the idea and soon we had the makings of a nice event.  The party was composed of mainly Fuji and Kitayama family members, many who had traveled across the country to attend.  One reason  so many family members attended is my mother is an amazing person and represents our “greatest generation,” the Nisei.  The Nisei are second generation Japanese Americans who were born in the USA just before WW II and famously were sent to Relocation Camps after Pearl Harbor even though they were American citizens.  The distinguishing feature of the Nisei were how they were able to prosper after WWII  without resources and facing a potentially hostile post WWII  America.    The Kitayamas left camp in Idaho and moved to Northern California and after 2 years of working for other flower growers were able to scrap together a little money to buy a piece of land in unincorporated Alameda County.   One of the first neighbors who welcomed and helped the Kitayamas were the Fuji family who had been growing carnations from before the war.  Kimiko was one of six Fuji siblings who knew the four Kitayama brothers.  My father Ray married Kiyome Kato and they had 4 children.  Kiyome sadly passed away in 1976 after battling cancer for several years.  Ray and Kimiko renewed their friendship after many years and were married in 1977.

Kimiko has been my mother now for 35 years.  Those years included; my graduating from high school and college, travel and “finding” myself, marriage, kids and career.  I needed support and guidance and received it from both my parents and the rest of my extended family.  Kitayama Brothers is about flowers and family.   Our success is our ability to work together as family.  We use the example of my parents and aunts and uncles that built our company  as the model for how the company should be run.  We also make sure our kids understand our history and a sense of responsibility to keep our legacy growing.

Thank you mom for who you are and how you inspire your family.