Freshly picked heirloom tomatoes sliced into a mozzarella Caprese salad are a favorite of farmer Mark Anderson, manager of Lark Farms in Fillmore, Calif.
He's not the only one who loves Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra and other old-fashioned tomatoes. Demand for the heirlooms is high at the small firm's sales outlets: farmers markets, including one in Beverly Hills, Madeo restaurant and a local Whole Foods.
Anderson is hoping a loan from an unlikely source -- Whole Foods Market Inc. itself -- will help him add more heirloom varieties to the four acres he tends in Ventura County.
The agricultural business has applied for a $100,000 loan under the grocer's little-known Local Producer Loan Program launched last year. If approved, Lark Farms will use the money to add acreage or build a seventh greenhouse, where heirlooms and hybrids are grown hydroponically -- with water, not soil -- in the winter.
The additional production could help the 4-year-old farm turn a profit.
"We're a small grower, so every little bit counts," Anderson said.
If successful, Lark Farms would be the first business in Southern California to land a Whole Foods loan, which can range from $1,000 to $100,000. A small business doesn't have to be a vendor for the natural foods giant, but it does need to meet its quality standards.
The pilot program, which can lend as much as $10 million a year, has about 29 loans outstanding, including four in Northern California, according to Whole Foods. It hit the $1-million mark last October but has had trouble gaining traction.
"It has been more difficult to find borrowers than we thought," said Jenny Brown, administrator of the loan program.
The decentralized company is relying on employees who work with new and existing vendors to get the word out about the program.
Adam Goodman, a brewer in Northern California, heard about the program from some of his farmer friends and landed a $50,000 loan this spring.
Goodman doesn't brew beer. He brews tea with sugar to create a fermented drink called kombucha. Goodman has used the money to expand production at his certified-organic facility in Santa Cruz. Kombucha Botanica, which has two employees who make 10-gallon batches by hand, quadrupled its capacity to 5,000 gallons a month.
The small-business owner, who embraces fair trade purchasing and donates 1% of sales to the local Homeless Garden Project, expects the boost in production, as well as his latest flavor -- Hibiscus Island -- to help him launch his health drink in Southern California.
