Breaking news: Co-founder of Gilroy Garlic Festival Don Christopher died, age 88, Dec. 12
Patriarch of Christopher Ranch was beloved for his philanthropy work and involvement with Gilroy schools
Don Christopher is dead at age 88. Photo courtesy Christopher Ranch
By Marty Cheek and Robert Airoldi
Don Christopher’s decades of work as a South Valley farmer brought world-wide fame to Gilroy as the “Garlic Capital of the World.” He died Tuesday, Dec. 12, with his family at his side. He was 88.
Along with his brother, Art Christopher, Don co-founded Christopher Ranch in 1956. They elevated it over the decades into America’s top garlic producer. With nearly 105 million pounds of garlic consisting of more than one billion bulbs, the local ag business’s 2022 season was the strongest it has been in recent years.
It was for his philanthropy work and involvement with Gilroy’s schools that Don was most beloved by the community.
Don Christopher
Statement by Christopher Ranch:
It is with a heavy heart that we share that our founder Don Christopher passed away peacefully yesterday, surrounded by family. There is no doubt that his legacy will endure through future generations. He made the Garlic Capital of the World something truly special, and he made a difference in countless lives. His love for his employees, for his community, and for his family was evident every single day, and he will be remembered for his steadfast commitment to making our hometown a better place.
The company’s patriarch was born in 1934 to established prune farmers in the San Jose area. The Christopher Brothers farming enterprise grew over the years by adding more tracts of land until the family was one of the largest growers of prunes in the county. Don Christopher grew up on that ranch. As a boy and teenager, he worked with his father and uncles in the orchard, developing a love of the land and a farmer’s work ethic. As a young man of 22, he had enough of prunes and decided to strike off on his own.
The Valley of Heart’s Delight was transforming into Silicon Valley, thanks in part to IBM’s building a high-tech complex off Cottle Road on land once covered with thousands of prune trees. San Jose’s population was growing with Baby Boomer families. Property values were rising.
“I came to Gilroy because I was looking to buy a place. I didn’t know I was going to grow garlic, honest to God,” Don said in a Gilroy Life story published four years ago. “I saw a piece of property that was down here that my dad said to buy. And then I saw this one, and I said, ‘No, dad, I got to buy this one.’”
At $1,100 an acre, the price seemed steep in 1956. But Don and his brother bought the 13-acre farm property.
“The neighbors were all pissed off,” Don recalled. “They said, ‘How come you’re coming in with all this money, you people from San Jose?’ And I said, ‘We couldn’t buy any cheaper.’”
The man who sold it to Don gave him a deal of five years with no interest on the payment. He told Don with pride: “Young man, I’m glad someone is coming in who wants to be a farmer.”
Surrounding Gilroy were about 20 garlic farms, most of them small operations. The biggest in the area was Gubser Farms, then the largest garlic producer in the United States. Joseph Gubser, Jr., purchased garlic grown from the South Valley farms.
“He would furnish the seed and we’d plant it and he’d get the garlic for a certain price like 10 cents a pound,” Don said.
Gilroy Garlic Festival co-founder Don Christopher in his office. Photo by Marty Cheek
Eventually, Christopher Ranch started growing its own garlic seed in Nevada. As it got bigger, it went to Oregon where it was easier to farm. Don and Art planted French and Italian varieties of garlic that were the most flavorful they could find. One variety had been cultivated in Italy for centuries, originating in the Piedmont area. Called Monviso, it became Christopher Ranch’s signature garlic product. Christopher Ranch has nurtured its Monviso heirloom seed line for more than half a century to preserve its flavor.
“My grandfather built the company little by little,” said Don’s grandson Ken in the Gilroy Life story. “He got really into vertical integration in the ‘80s. That’s when we started peeling our own garlic, roasting our own garlic, doing garlic jars — pesto and pickled — and really expanding the product line.”
Many Americans in the 20th century saw garlic as an exotic ingredient better suited for restaurants than their kitchens. Although it was a staple of Italian dishes, it was not widely used by home chefs. That started to change when Rudy Melone, the president of Gavilan Community College in the late 1970s, read a newspaper story about a garlic soup festival in the town of Arleux, France. It gave Melone an idea to promote the local garlic industry to a wider audience. He approached Christopher and Val Filice, a renown local chef, to see if they could bring media attention Gilroy and its “stinking rose” industry.
“He didn’t talk about a garlic festival at the time,” Don said. “He wanted to have a party at the ranch here and invite everyone involved with garlic — the growers, some of the buyers and some of the people from Los Angeles such as the food writers.”
The year 1978, the “unofficial first garlic festival” was launched.
“We were trying to create more awareness about garlic because back then consumption was a fraction of what it is now,” Ken said. “It was largely regulated to just Mediterranean cuisine. Now it’s a staple for many, many dishes.”
Ken Christopher with his grandfather Don Christopher in a garlic field. Photo courtesy Christopher Ranch
The next year, the official first Gilroy Garlic Festival took place on the Bloomfield Ranch property on the west side of U.S. 101 south of Gilroy. Filice as chef created a menu of garlicky foods, many of which have become staples of Gourmet Alley. The organizers estimated about 5,000 people would attend the weekend event. They were shocked when people kept coming and coming far beyond that number.
They figure about 15,000 showed up to the two-day festival. With triple the expected turnout, volunteers had to rush to Monterey and San Francisco to buy prawns and other ingredients. They recycled tickets because they hadn’t printed enough for the deluge of garlic-loving guests.
The festival in 1980 moved to Christmas Hill Park on the west side of Gilroy. In three years, the event grew so popular that it brought in more than 100,000 ticket-buying attendees. Hollywood actor Danny Kaye, a popular entertainer who also was an expert chef, showed up and helped with the cooking in Gourmet Alley. His fame brought media attention to the festival, helping it grow.
“Most people didn’t think it was going to go,” Don said of the festival’s initial reaction by Gilroy leaders.
Even the Gilroy mayor at that time told Don that a garlic festival was a crazy idea and no one would show. But the public proved the nay-sayers wrong. The festival added a Friday to the event because the weekend couldn’t handle the large crowds.
“We caught hell for that too. It’s on a Friday. The working man can’t come in on Friday,” Don said.
“Once you see more than 100,000 people celebrating garlic over a three-day weekend, your perspective starts to shift,” Ken said. “You realize that you’re onto something.”
Don Christopher, on the right, and his grandson, Ken Christopher. Photo by Marty Cheek
The Gilroy Garlic Festival’s reputation has since grown beyond the city’s boundary and is now a “South County celebration,” he added.
The festival has raised more than $12 million to fund school programs and nonprofit organizations. Each year the event was held, 4,000 volunteers get “paid” for the hours they spend helping out at the festival. Among the most popular volunteer activities was preparing the nonstop flow of garlicky dishes under the massive Gourmet Alley food tent.
Every year, Christopher Ranch would donate two tons of garlic that’s used at the festival. The grower also sponsored popular culinary stars of TV food shows such as Giada De Laurentiis who entertained a standing-room-only audience at the Cook-off Stage at the 2017 festival.
Beyond the festival, the Christopher family keeps active helping the Gilroy community in many other philanthropic ways, including education and the support of local youth.
They donated 10 acres of land on the west side of the city to the Gilroy Unified School District for the Christopher High School campus, named it to honor the family.
The Don Christopher Sports Complex contributes to helping children and teens stay physically active.
Don and his wife, Karen Christopher, show off a copy of the book Garlic Festival Playbook by Larry and J. Chris Mickartz. Photo courtesy Larry Mickartz
Don’s philanthropic spirit led in 2019 to creating the Christopher Family Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting educational programs for local youth.
Nonprofits supported by the family include Unravel, which helps children with cancer, the Gilroy Compassion Center and the St. Joseph Family Center. The family worked with the Epilepsy Center of California to help children with this condition “be normal kids for one day” by picking cherries in the orchard and enjoying an outing at Gilroy Gardens Theme Park on Hecker Pass, Don said.
“The festival builds a sense of community and volunteerism from the beginning. It’s something that’s really unique to Gilroy,” Ken said. “And then for us as Christopher Ranch, the Gilroy Garlic Festival is a critical part of our identity. We’re synonymous with Gilroy and the Garlic Fest. Those three things go hand in hand. We want to see this thing go on for another 40 years at least.”
Calling Don Christopher a “South County legend and icon,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Mike Wasserman at the Dec. 13 board meeting noted the garlic farmer’s passing
“I can tell you personally when I first met Don Christopher, I was in awe. In awe of the business he established and what he was doing for the community. . . . In South County, there’s Christopher High School, which the family made possible. Countless charities have been the beneficiaries of Don Christopher and the Christopher Ranch. When you enjoy a garlic fry at McDonalds, that’s from Don Christopher and Christopher Ranch as well. South County has lost a legend, but South County still has the Christopher family and the Christopher corporation that will continue to take care of it as they have done for decades thanks to Don’s leadership.”
Click HERE to read thoughts about Don Christopher’s character from a close friend.