The Costco Connection - September 2015

By Christina Guerrero

FOR THE MUNN family, farming was a tradition with deep roots. Brothers Robert and Duane Munn learned how to farm from their father, Lorin Munn, but when Robert shared his dream of leaving his well-established farm near Nyssa, Oregon, and moving his family to Prosser, Washington, to farm on a larger scale, his father was dead set against it. Nevertheless, he accompanied his son to inspect the dry-land wheat farms Robert had his eye on.

“All the way up there, for 225 miles, I was
preached to about how there was more
important things than breaking a family up,”
Robert Munn says. “I’ll never forget that.”
But when Lorin, now deceased, saw the
land he realized there were a lot more possi-
bilities in the region for growing crops than
there were in Oregon, and he too began mak-
ing plans for development. In 1976, the three
Munn families moved to the more-than-
9,000-acre farm located in an area known as
the Horse Heaven Hills. Quickly realizing
they would need help to develop such a large
farmland, they recruited Brent Schulthies
(Robert’s brother-in-law), Brent Hartley and
Clyde Bybee, who also had established farms
in Oregon.

“People that worked for us down there—
a lot of them came up here and worked for
us,” Robert Munn recalls. ”There were about
90 people who came, altogether. It looked like
an exodus.”
Today the area has grown to include
24,000 acres of farmland among the three
farms—Sunset, Hartley and Bybee—which all
have their own packing and storage facilities.
The five partners, Robert and Duane Munn
of Sunset Produce, Brent Hartley and Brent
Schulthies of Hartley Produce and Clyde
Bybee of Bybee Produce, come together
under the Sunheaven name to share a high-
tech water irrigation system. Each farm is
independently owned, but together they pro-
duce about 40 percent of the onions grown in
Washington state, many of which supply
Costco warehouses across the country.

No shortage of challenges

Their success involved a lot of hard work and challenges, in an undeveloped area that lacked a mail route, water, telephone lines and even a road.

During their first winter on the land, before the roads could be established, the wind would blow and wipe out the one power line, leaving them with no electricity for days, and scatter soil from the fields across the gravel roads and drop it at their front doors.

Another challenge was acquiring more

Produce-farming families
create unique business model

Growing together supplier profile

Companies:; • Bybee Produce • Hartley Produce • Sunset Produce

Websites:; • bybeeproduce.com • utahonions.com • sunsetonions.com

Products at Costco:; 10 pounds jumbo yellow onions (Bybee); 8 pounds jumbo red, 10 pounds jumbo yellow, 5 pounds jumbo sweet onions (Hartley); 10 pounds jumbo yellow onions, 5 pounds jumbo sweet onions (Sunset)

Comments about Costco:;“Costco has been an important partner for us. Over the years we have sold them onions, frozen corn, peas and beans. We have developed a great relationship with Costco and look forward to working with them for many years in the future.” “Very honest company that is very fair to work with from the supplier side.;They are very conscious of the American farmer, which is a relief in today’s world.; We place great value on the relationship with Costco.”—Brent Hartley