Limoneira

Limoneira was founded in 1893 at Union Oil Company Building in Santa Paula, California by Nathan Blanchard, Sr., one of the founders of Santa Paula, and Wallace Hardison. They started with 412.96 acres of land which over time would increase as the company grew. The Portuguese "Limoneira" means lemon grove or lemon farm which was their principal crop. The year 1895 was a milestone for the company when it planted 690 orange trees, its first non-lemon product. By 1898 the company had nearly 50,000 trees, consisting of: 32,000 lemon trees, 3,000 grapefruit trees and 12,000 orange trees. This year, Blanchard also retired and appointed Charles Collins Teague as his successor.The Limoneira plantation also had its own fire department, which still exists today and is one of the oldest continuously operating fire departments in Ventura County. In 1901, Limoneira achieved its first net profit and paid its first dividend to stockholders the following year. In 1907, Limoneira purchased the 2,300 acre Olivelands Tract, acquiring 1,000 of agriculture for walnuts, olives, beans, corn and hay and, because it converted 1,300 to livestock grazing, the company also purchased the Santa Paula and Horse and Feed Company the next year. In January 1908, the newspaper Ventura Free Press ran a story for Limoneira called "Greatest Lemon Ranch in the World", saying ""A further increase in the size of the largest lemon plantation in the world...will be the result of planting this season at the Limoneira Ranch. There are now...27,000 bearing lemon trees on the property, and this year trees will be on 300 acres more. The crop last year was the largest since the planting has begun..Bigness is not the chief end kept in view the management of the ranch. The growth of the enterprise, in fact, has come from never flagging efforts to maintain and improve the quality of the product. In addition to lemons, the ranch has 500 acres of walnuts".By 1913, the company's growth was evident and the Santa Paula Chronicle said ""The Lemoneira Company has demonstrated the wisdom of ample frost protection. The company will ship more than 450 cars of lemons this year, approximately one-third of the entire amount to the be shipped from this State". By 1916, the company was battling Sunkist as both of them had nationally recognized products and Limoneira refused to exclusively brand their oranges as "Sunkist" but later reluctantly agreed.

By the 1920s, the company’s acreage under cultivation had quadrupled in less than 30 years and numerous building and expansion projects were underway. It was the solid base created in the previous 30 years that pulled the company through the Depression and the challenges of the 1940s. In 1900, with Teague as the manager, he built the company into the state's largest citrus holding and the world's largest acreage. The company also joined the Southern California Fruit Exchange before pulling out a few years later and joining again in 1911.The company also once set the record for deepest oil well in Ventura County before abandoning the well in 1949. The well like many others were in search of oil but oil was never found on Limoneira properties despite several companies participating in drilling, including Superior Oil Company, Richfield Oil Corporation, Humble Oil, Unocal Corporation and Standard Oil. Throughout its history, it has employed foreign labor including Japanese and Mexicans. In 1924, after the Immigration Act of 1924 which barred Japanese immigration, it particularly focused on Mexican labor. Since the 1970s, Limoneira has also been a leading lemon supplier to Japan and also distributes to Korea, China, Philippines and Thailand. In 1985, Limoneira partnered with Samuel Edwards Associates to become Limoneira Associates until Limoneira become one company again in 1990.

In 2005, Limoneira made a cross-equity agreement with Calavo Growers where Limoneira got a 6.9 stake of Calavo while Calavo got a 15.1 stake in Limoneira. In 2013, Limoneira acquired Associated Citrus Packers, Inc. of Yuma, Arizona for $18.6 million. In 2014, it acquired Marlin Ranching Company for $1.4 million.