We are a fourth-generation family-owned produce company, and the first to bring commercial greenhouse growing to North America. As the true greenhouse pioneer, our Grandpa Umberto Mastronardi’s vision in the 1940s was to provide people with incredible-tasting, fresh, greenhouse-grown vegetables all year long.
Today, our family continues his passion, ensuring sustainability is top of mind, blending technology with tradition and growing world-class Non-GMO produce that tastes unlike any other fruit or veggie you’ve ever had.
It’s our mission to “inspire healthy living through WOW flavor experiences”. And that’s not just something we say.
We travel the world to find the best, most innovative and most flavorful produce we can, then we grow it in our state-of-the-art greenhouses, let it ripen on the vine and hand-pick it at the absolute perfect ripeness.
By growing our produce in a protected and optimal environment, we can make sure we bring people the very best tasting fruits and veggies all year round. With our crops protected from animals, weather and other conditions, we can focus on pushing the boundaries when it comes to flavor and new flavorful products – and on bringing you the most mind-blowingly tasty produce you’ve ever tried.
Here, innovation inspires everything we do.
And we don’t just mean our state-of-the-art greenhouses. From water filtration to packaging, we’re always looking for new ways to make our produce – and how it tastes – that much better.
We start with what Mother Nature already gives us – rainwater – collect it in giant basins, then UV treat it and reuse it over and over again. This keeps our water usage low which reduces our carbon footprint, too. Our plants are fed through a drip irrigation system, which ensures they get the exact amount of water they need. All this means our water usage is up to ten times less than that of field farms.
We grow our plants using organic coconut husks or rockwool, a reusable mineral fiber. Then, after use, rockwool gets recycled to make things like driveway pavers.
Sunset is a Safe Quality Food certified company, so we avoid chemicals wherever possible. Instead we use ladybugs and other natural critters to make sure each fruit and vegetable we grow is protected from hungry unwanted bugs.
Because we can control our environment, we take up less space. Our greenhouses are ten times more land-efficient than field farms.
Our facilities use skylights to take in as much natural light as possible and cut down on electricity. And when it’s cloudy, we use energy efficient lighting – using about a fifth of the energy of a conventional light bulb.
We want to make sure our produce gets to you as fresh as can be, while being as
environmentally responsible as possible. Our recyclable packaging includes the top seal
Eco Flavor Bowl™, which reduces plastic by more than 20%. We’re also in the process of
testing earth-friendly and plastic-free packaging, like fully recyclable paperboard and
packaging you can compost in your own backyard.
Once our fruits and veggies are ready to eat, we want to get them to you as quickly as possible – which is why we have a number of distribution centers and greenhouses across North America. Shorter distances between our greenhouses and your grocery store means fresher, more flavorful produce and fewer CO2 emissions as well.
SUNSET was one of the first produce companies to introduce product traceability back to the farm. Our produce is identified at the greenhouse with a code indicating the exact farm where it came from, as well as the country of origin.
