Yakima Chief Hops Adds Four New Family Farms To Its Ownership Group

For the first time in half a decade, Yakima Chief Hops (YCH) had expanded its ownership group with the addition of four new family owned hop farms.

Ever since the year 2014, YCH has had 11 family farms in its ownership group. Now the group will add Coleman Agriculture of St. Paul, OR; Double ‘R’ Hop Ranches of Harrah, WA; Black Star Ranches of Moxee, WA; and Oasis Farms of Prosser, WA. These new farms that are now part of YCH will bring a total of 15 family farms from across the Pacific Northwest, all with a shared passion for quality, innovation and sustainability.

Speaking of innovation, the addition of Coleman Agriculture, Oregon’s largest hop grower is one that will soon pay dividends to the group of hop farmers. We recently wrote about how Coleman Agriculture has worked with Oregon State University to study hop terroir. With this new and expanded research, the group of 15 hop growers will learn more about how the soil and climate affects how hops grow across the Pacific Northwest.

Here are additional details from the press release provided to us from YCH…

YCH Chairman of the Board Rich Van Horn states, “On behalf of the Board of Directors we are pleased to welcome these great multi-generational hop-growing families into our ownership group. They are top quality producers and people.”

Yakima Chief Hops and its predecessor organizations were formed 30 years ago by a group of hop growers seeking to directly bridge the gap between farmers and brewers. They strived for greater transparency across the supply chain to ensure that both the hop and brewing industries continued to thrive. Now, as the largest 100% grower-owned global hop supplier, YCH is uniquely positioned to connect multigenerational family hop farms with the world’s finest brewers.

With the addition of four new grower-owners, Yakima Chief Hops hopes to strengthen its support of the global brewing industry. Mike Goettl, CEO for YCH says, “With the growing demand for US aromatic hops we wanted to make sure we could continue to increase our supply of these hops to our customers at a fair price. Growing and processing hops is an expensive business, so by increasing our scale with these new owners we can help spread out our costs to the benefit of our brewing customers.”

Yakima Chief Hops is proud to welcome Coleman Agriculture, Oasis Farms, Black Star Ranches and Double ‘R’ Hop Ranches to the YCH grower owner family, each contributing their own unique heritage and experiences. YCH is excited to help share the story of these family farms, as it continues to invite brewers to learn more about where their hops are sourced.