In the early 1940’s, Alex Sambado sold his grocery store in San Francisco. He moved his family to rural Linden, California, where he purchased a cherry and walnut orchard, hoping to provide his family with a better life. At the time, Alex probably would never have guessed that his bold move would change the lives of the Sambado family for generations to come.

Forty years later, Alex’s son, Lawrence, decided it was time to make another daring move. He reorganized the company his father had founded, A. Sambado and Son, in order to take advantage of the potential in the export cherry market. He built one of the first fumigation chambers in the region and upgraded the packing facilities to meet the special demands of the export produce market.

Lawrence also formed Primavera Marketing, Inc. with Ross Westbrook. Ross’ roots were also in agriculture. For three generations his family had been in the table grape and wine business. In addition, he also had extensive experience exporting produce and a masters degree in International Business. Ross and Lawrence believed that, together, they could help pioneer new quality standards, not only for existing markets in the cherry industry, but also for the emerging California apple industry.

The collaboration quickly paid off.
Lawrence was able to bring his sons, Richard and Tim, into the business. Richard manages Primavera’s domestic marketing program. Tim manages Prima Frutta’s apple and cherry packing facilities.

In the past five years, Primavera has established itself as a leader in shipping California cherries world-wide.

But that’s not all. In a typical year, Primavera will market approximately 600,000 cartons of cherries, 800,000 cartons of apples, 250,000 lugs of table grapes and 8,000,000 lbs. of walnuts. Recently, we have added peaches, nectarines, kabocha squash, onions, and bell peppers to our product mix. These additions will enable Primavera to offer premium fruits, vegetables and nuts to our buyers virtually year round.

Lawrence

Ross

Richard

Tim