WHY WAWONA
Sustainability
Being Planet Positive is Part of Wawona's Triple Bottom Line
Our Commitment to Sustainability
Community/People
- Serve as catalyst for community improvement
- Partner with industry associations, academia, and regional and state environmental resources to gain access to new practices that will improve Wawona’s impact on local communities and the land around its facilities
- Make regular and ongoing financial contributions to organizations in the communities including its Valley Children’s Hospital, Habitat for Humanity and several churches
- Active in community organizations focused on the growth and prosperity of the region
- Contribute fruit products to support community fundraising events
- Actively volunteer in community service events
Environment/Planet
- Partner with suppliers and staff
- Rely on increasing amounts of renewable resources
- Conserve non-renewables
- Use co-generation to diminish reliance on non-renewables
- Protect sensitive environmental areas
- Improve air, water, soil and wildlife resources
- Reduce waste and pollution through recycling and energy conservation
- Track and reduce use of water for irrigation and processing
- Work with regional and state environmental groups to replenish ground water aquifers
Business/Profit
- Devoted fairness and ethical standards in employment and commercial endeavors
- Adhere to careful measures and processes to exceed expectations for food safety and quality
- Compelled to deliver long-term economic success for customers, colleagues, shareholders and suppliers
- Communicate clearly and with transparency
- Support staff and colleagues with the respect they deserve,
- Pay suppliers within terms and resolve disputes fairly
- Set expectations for our suppliers to share our high standards for ethics, courtesy, reliability, productivity and innovation.
Examples of Wawona’s Sustainable Practices
- There are two co-generation power systems that convert natural gas to hot water and electricity. The hot water is used throughout the plant and handles 75% of the electrical needs in a year. This is enough to power the facility off-the-grid for nine months of the year.
- About 50,000 gallons of water is recycled every day at the facility and pumped into our peach orchards. Additionally, more than 50,000 gallons per day of defrost water during season goes to the company’s worm farm to break down solids and is treated before being discharged to the city.
- More than 100,000 pounds of cardboard is recycled each month, an average of 1,200,000 pounds each year.
- Wawona also makes effective and sustainable use of the millions of peach pits that are removed from the fruit each season. Peach pits are spread in the fields to deliver nutrients back into the soil and on dirt service roads to provide dust control. As a result, there is no need for petroleum-based, dust-reducing liquids, improving overall emissions and health.
Wawona is committed to being good stewards of its land, air, and water, while working to deliver its customers with the highest quality frozen fruit products in the world.
Sustainability on the Farm
Wawona Sustainability in Action
“Hoo” is that in Our Orchard?
Wawona has created a highly successful symbiotic relationship with four families of barn owls in the peach orchards around its Cotati production facility. Barn owls are specialist birds and highly adapted to suit their ecological role as hunters. With guidance from local naturalists, Wawona built and erected four owl houses designed to attract nesting owl pairs.
Wawona’s orchards have proven to be great habitats for the owls – providing roosting, nesting and feeding space as they breed and raise their young. In return, the owls deliver a variety of natural and sustainable benefits for the orchards. The barn owls feed on rodents, gophers and squirrels, which might otherwise eat crops – in and around the orchards or in storage – and keep these populations in balance, eliminating the need for poisons.
Swipe Left for that Pest
Wawona has taken an interesting, but not very romantic approach to eliminating insect pests from its operations – dramatically reducing its need for chemical pesticides. Wawona introduced synthetic pheromone disruptors into the trees that confuse mate localization and courtship, both preventing mating and blocking the insects’ reproductive cycles. By hanging pheromone disruptor tags in trees throughout its orchards, Wawona is preventing the need for chemical insecticide sprays. The only downside … is lonely bugs! We can live with that.
The Road is the Pits
Literally. Wawona make effective and sustainable use of the millions of peach pits it removes from the fruit each season. The pits are spread on the dirt service roads within the orchards to provide dust control and deliver nutrients back into the soils as they degrade. As a result, there is no need for paving or petroleum-based dust reducing liquids. And the roads smell better as well!
