Editorial Standards

People come to our blog and recipe pages to make real decisions: which greens to put on their restaurant menu, how to store lettuce so it lasts, whether a vegetable is in season, how to prepare something they have never cooked with before. A chef planning a menu, a distributor briefing a buyer, or a home cook standing in a kitchen all deserve information they can rely on.

We have grown and shipped fresh California vegetables since 1989, and our families have farmed the Salinas Valley since the 1880s. This page lays out how we turn that experience into content we are willing to put our name on — who writes it, who checks it, what we cite, how often we revisit it, and how we handle mistakes.

Who writes and reviews our content

Everything we publish is created or vetted by people who work in produce for a living — in our fields, our cooler, and our sales relationships.

Our articles are authored under the direction of Dan Holt, Vice President of Sales at Hitchcock Farms. Dan entered the industry as a quality-assurance inspector in the early 1990s and has spent decades working across organic, specialty, and conventional produce with independent operators and regional and national chains in North America and beyond. He joined Hitchcock Farms in 2019. His background means our content is grounded in how produce actually moves from field to plate.

Depending on the topic, drafts are reviewed by the person on our team closest to that subject:

• Growing, harvest, and seasonality topics are checked against what our grower partners and field teams see across the Salinas Valley, the Imperial Valley, and our winter Yuma, Arizona ground.

• Product and variety topics (romaine hearts, Iceberg Babies®, Brussels sprouts, napa cabbage, leeks, celery, green onions) are reviewed by the people who grow, pack, and sell those items every day.

• Food-safety and handling topics are checked against the standards our operation is audited on, not against general web advice.

• Recipe, storage, and menu topics are tested for practicality by team members who work directly with the produce being described.

Company updates and press items are published under the Hitchcock Farms name.

How we research and cite information

We build our content from three kinds of sources, in this order:

1. What we know firsthand. When we describe how a crop grows, when it is in season, how long a variety keeps, how it behaves in the field or the kitchen, or what sets one vegetable apart from another, we are drawing on more than three decades of growing, packing, and shipping these exact products.

2. Recognized food-safety and industry standards. Our farming, harvesting, and handling practices are held to independently audited standards, and we reference those frameworks rather than paraphrasing them loosely. The ones most relevant to our content:

• California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) — science-based food-safety practices for leafy greens, verified by government audit.

• PrimusGFS — a globally recognized food-safety certification covering our farming, harvesting, and handling.

• HACCP principles — identifying and controlling food-safety hazards at critical points in our process.

• FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) — preventive controls designed to manage risk before produce reaches the customer.

  2. Reputable public and scientific sources. For nutrition, health, and food-handling claims, we look to sources such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rather than to secondhand summaries.

  3. We do not present another company’s marketing copy as a factual source. We do not cite content-farm articles, AI-generated posts, or pages that themselves cite reputable resources.

How we use AI

We may use AI tools to help with early research, outlining, and proofreading. We do not publish AI-written articles as they come out of a tool, and we never use AI to invent nutrition facts, seasonality claims, food-safety guidance, or company history.

Before anything goes live, it is:

• Outlined and written or substantially rewritten by a member of our team

• Checked against our own growing and packing experience and the food-safety standards above

• Reviewed by whoever on our team knows the topic best

We do not use AI-generated images on our website. All photos presented as our farms, our team, or our produce are real photos.

How we keep content current

We revisit an article when any of the following happens:

• A food-safety standard or regulation we reference changes

• Seasonality, growing regions, or product availability change on our end

• We learn something in the field or the kitchen that changes what we would recommend

• A reader points out an error or a gap

• Roughly twelve months pass since the last review, whichever comes first

When a published date or "updated" date appears on a piece, it reflects a genuine review — not an automatic timestamp. An older date simply means we looked at the piece again and the guidance still holds.

How we describe our company and products

When we state facts about Hitchcock Farms, those claims reflect our actual history and operations.

When we describe growing practices, food-safety certifications, or where and when we grow, we are describing our real operation across the Salinas Valley, the Imperial Valley, and Yuma, Arizona.

We do not inflate certifications or claim capabilities we do not have.

Advertising, sponsorship, and product mentions

Our blog and recipe content is not sponsored, and we do not sell placement in it. We do not accept payment to feature, review, or recommend another company, product, or service.

When we name a variety, a growing method, or a piece of equipment, it is because it is genuinely part of how we work — not because anyone paid for the mention. We are a produce grower, packer, and shipper; we do not earn affiliate commissions on the products discussed in our content.

Corrections policy

If we publish something inaccurate, we correct it.

If you spot an error, contact us at info@hitchcockfarms.com or call (831) 424-8952 and ask for the marketing team. It helps to include the page address and what you believe is wrong.

What you can expect from us:

• We acknowledge correction requests promptly, typically within one to two business days.

• We check factual disputes with the team member closest to the topic and, where it matters, against the relevant standard or public source.

• When a correction is warranted, we fix the content, update the review date, and note meaningful factual corrections where appropriate.

Our commitment

Hitchcock Farms is a family-rooted, California-grown produce company built on partnerships with growers whose reputations, like ours, depend on doing right by the people we serve.

The same standard we hold in the field is the standard we hold for what we publish. Every article carries our name, and we treat that seriously.

Questions

Editorial and content questions: info@hitchcockfarms.com

General inquiries: (831) 424-8952 — Hitchcock Farms, Inc., 850 Work St. Ste 201, Salinas, CA 93901.

Sales:

produce@hitchcockfarms.com

Phone: (831) 424-4864

Fax: (831) 424-8955