By JENNIFER STRAILEY February 15, 2023
Cultivate has a story to tell, and it could be yours.
The recently launched Central Valley, Calif.-based marketing firm is rooted in what it says is a unique and winning combination of brand savvy and agricultural industry understanding.
Cultivate’s four-person, all-female team is composed of founders Angela Hernandez, president; Michele Visser, vice president of business development; Jane Olvera Majors, vice president of strategy; and Brianne Adams, co-founder and vice president of operations.
What is Cultivate?
“We are in the business of cultivating agriculture-based brands. We help you get from the farm to the shelf,” Hernandez said. “If your product grows in the ground, we want to work with you.”
The four founders grew up in California’s Central Valley and worked in agriculture as young people. Hernandez remembers working summers at Sun Valley Packing as a teenager, doing whatever jobs were required from hauling boxes to working in the packinghouse. Sun Valley’s owners, the Jones family, are what she calls her “chosen family,” having known them most of her life.
Visser also grew up working alongside her farmer father in the field, in the packinghouse and in other aspects of the family’s agricultural business.
“What makes us different is that we have lived in this space. We know the ins and outs of agriculture, and that’s what makes us different than any other marketing agency in the industry,” Hernandez said. “We’ve lived it. We’ve breathed it. We understand not only the marketing side, but all the moving pieces of a grower-packer-shipper from field to table.
“We want to work with people who grow things from the ground up, to help them get their products — their ideas to fruition,” Hernandez continued. “We want to take our collective experience and our successes working with agriculture-based companies and bring that expertise to the industry.”
Cultivate says it also understands today’s consumer and what motivates them to buy. But at the same time, says Hernandez, it can be overwhelming for grower-shipper-packers to embark on a marketing plan.
“For some companies, the question is, ‘Where do we even begin?’ At Cultivate we understand that the process can be scary,” Hernandez said. “We’re here to lean into creative ideas and partner on innovation. That’s what we’re really excited about.”
