Buck Brand Citrus

The Story of Buck Brand

Our story dates back to the mid 1990s.

Meet Lisle Babcock, one determined farmer and owner of Buck Brand Citrus, based in Terra Bella (Good Earth) in the San Joaquin Valley in California. He'd always grown oranges for flavour, and had done his best to distance himself from the ups and downs of price-based commodity markets.

Back here in BC, Thrifty Foods was on the search for the finest fruit available. One memorable spring day back in 1997, Thrifty Foods met with Lisle Babcock and asked him two simple but important questions, "How many oranges do you need to sell in order to be viable? " and "……….can we buy your whole crop?"

From this moment onward, a perfect partnership was born - with Thrifty Foods purchasing those now famous Buck Brand Navel Oranges. Over the years, we have continued to support Lisle and his team of family-run farms by expanding our exclusive organic citrus offering from that first Buck Brand Navel to over a dozen varieties of citrus products now available in all of our stores.

The partnership has also born fruit when it comes to organic certification. For over five years, our produce experts worked with Lisle and others on his Terra Bella ranch to achieve certified organic accreditation for all citrus products supplied to Thrifty Foods.

Today, arriving seasonally, our Buck Brand fruit (including many fun varieties like Limequats and Mango Oranges, and classic favourites like our Navel Oranges) has become legendary for its great flavour and mouth-watering juiciness. Hand-picked on Lisle's California ranch when ripe and only when ordered, each Buck Brand Citrus fruit is brushed with a horsehair brush to concentrate its flavour, a traditional method that allows the fruit to 'breathe' naturally. Buck Brand is one of a kind.

The Deer Creek Heights Ranch, home of Buck Brand Citrus, was featured on the Food Network's "Pitchin' In", with host and Canadian chef Lynn Crawford. Here's the episode that highlights the beauty of the ranch where Lisle and his wife and partner Mary Lou live and work. Can Chef Crawford handle working on the ranch? Check it out!



Here's Lisle he walks and talks through the aisles at one of our stores!