View the Ancestry Chart
Check out our Featured Blood Orange Recipe
View the Meyer Lemons NYT Article
David Karp's Blood Orange Article
Buddha's Hand, Citrus Magazine
CCS was founded in 1983 by Mike and Barbara Foskett, and Lance and Laura Walheim in Napa, California. Motivated by a conspicuous lack of specialty citrus, particularly blood oranges in San Francisco Bay Area markets, they convinced a Porterville citrus grower to plant 15 acres of three different varieties of blood oranges and 5 acres of Oroblanco, a new pummelo-grapefruit hybrid developed by the University of California.
First crops of the new plantings were well received but it became quickly apparent that to make CCS viable long-term, the Fosketts and Walheims would have to plant their own trees and sell their own fruit. The Fosketts moved to Porterville in 1990, purchased 5 acres and planted it with Moro blood oranges, Meyer lemons, Page mandarins and Buddha’s Hand citrons. The Walheims followed a year later and began planting Meyer lemons, Page and Pixie mandarins and Cara Cara Pink Navels on 17 acres near Exeter. In 2003 The Fosketts purchased an additional 35 acres in Lindcove and have planted it with a variety of specialties, including 4 varieties of kumquats and kumquat hybrids, Buddha’s Hand citron, Tarocco and Sanguinelli blood oranges and Yuzu.
The challenges of picking, packing, shipping and marketing specialty citrus has been difficult but exciting and rewarding. Most varieties need special handling from the field to the packing house, into the box and finally shipped anywhere in the world. Being a small Grower, Shipper and Packer in an industry dominated by large corporations has also presented challenges.
For over a quarter of a century CCS has represented over 20 growers and introduced a cornucopia of new citrus varieties, including Moro, Tarocco and Sanguinelli blood oranges, Oroblanco pummelo-grapefruit hybrid, Cara Cara pink navels, Buddha’s Hand citrons, Page mandarins, Italian lemons, Bergamot sour oranges and many others. Today we offer over 20 different varieties and are still dedicated to introducing the best new citrus to American consumers. We work closely with the University of California and California citrus nurseries to stay on top of the latest variety developments to ensure we offer the newest and best tasting varieties.