Friday, April 10, 2009 at 7:02PM What's Fresh, What's Local
A MOTHER'S LOVE TAKES ROOT
Text and photos by Martha Christopherson | edible San Diego, Spring 2008
CARDIFF-BY-THE-SEA, California - Cynthia Bronté has a great view of the ocean from the front yard of her home in Cardiff-by-the-Sea but she spends most of her time in the backyard, where ocean breezes give way to a spicy aroma of basil, reminiscent of her grandmother’s home in Sicily.
Bronté has been growing basil in two greenhouses behind her house since 1995 and turning the tender herb into artisan pestos, marinades and infused olive oil.
Her company, Basiltops, was born out of necessity. “When my daughter, Andrea, was 11 she was a latchkey kid,” says Bronté. “I had to find something I could do from home so my daughter wouldn’t have to come home to an empty house after school.”
A friend told Bronté about an available one-acre lot with the original 1957 house and two greenhouses on it. Bronté bought the property, including the greenhouses that were home to a water- guzzling houseplant business. “I didn’t have a background in horticulture and I’d never taken any classes,” Bronté admits. “I just knew if I could figure out how to make this work, I could be home for my daughter.”
I met Bronté at her home, and she seemed to have the laidback personality of many folks who live in beach communities. But once we sat down in her kitchen (with the aroma of roasting garlic wafting from the oven), I encountered an intensely driven and strong-willed woman staring back at me through wirerimmed glasses.
Bronté explains that it didn’t take long for her to realize the water needed to grow houseplants was eating up her profits. After she attended a hydroponic trade show, she began experimenting with the concept using herbs because they took up less space than houseplants. She cultivated a sweet-tasting basil using her system and, at the urging of friends, began producing pesto sauces and olive oil and her business, Basiltops, was launched.
“I had my child in mind all the time,” says Bronté. “I was driven to make this work for both of us.” Bronté gave me a tour of her greenhouses with her rat terrier, Sweetie, in tow. A self-described tinkerer, Bronté designed the irrigation system for cultivating by using pipe, rain gutters, cement blocks, socks, plastic bags and some ingenuity. She used liquid kelp and worm castings for nutrients. As we walked, Bronté tugged, wiggled and made adjustments to the watering system and gently brushed her hands along rows of basil, releasing its aroma into the air, beaming as if it were her very first crop.
The basil is cultivated on beds of perlite inside split pipes resting atop large, wooden tables laid out end-to-end and watered by a drip system of small, black hoses. Since converting her two greenhouses to a 14,000-square-foot hydroponic system, Bronté has cut her water usage to less than 10% of what she used when she grew houseplants. She swears she has not had a monthly water bill over $50 in the last 12 years.
Bronté describes Basiltops as a “seed-to-sauce” operation and said she’s involved in every aspect of the business. Her basil takes 45 days to cultivate and is then cut, defoliated by hand and placed in large white buckets of olive oil to make a crude. The buckets are refrigerated for three to six months before going to the production facility, where the crude is mixed with other ingredients to create one of her 16 sauces.
Bronté began selling her Basiltops sauces at local farmers’ markets and people loved them. “I would see the same people coming back every week to buy more,” she says. She still works the farmers’ markets every weekend and finds the instant feedback she gets from her customers invaluable.
“Listening to people at the markets gives me ideas for new recipes,” Bronté says. “People would ask me when I was going to make a dairy-free version, so I did. Then I created juice-based sauces for people who wanted a version with less oil.”
Bronté got the idea of making a pesto with pumpkin seeds to fulfill requests from customers with nut allergies and she also heard from vegans and raw foodists. “Hemp is the new sweetheart of vegans and rawists, so I make Hemp Seed Pesto now,” she says.
Bronté’s biggest seller is Pesto Perfectto, a traditional pesto recipe using pine nuts. She makes mild and spicy versions of all her pestos, including Hazel Basil Pesto, Pistachio Pesto and Roasted Red Pepper Pesto.
Not only has Bronté’s business thrived, but so has her daughter, Andrea. “She’s a fantastic artist and lives and teaches in L.A.” Now that her daughter is on her own, Bronté has shifted her efforts to helping small growers across the country who are starting out the way she did.
She has talked to venture capitalists about helping her franchise Basiltops so that small farmers across the country can make pesto in their markets and sell it at local farmers’ markets.
“The idea caters to what people are looking for,” says Bronté. “They want to know who is growing their food, if it’s grown locally and what’s in it.” It’s a way to give the small, community farmer a chance to succeed. “Once I found a way to make it all work, it completely changed things around for my daughter and me,” Bronté says. “I want to help make that happen for someone else.”