By Jorge Mercado

Co-Managing Editor

Santa Barbara-based Kate Farms was started with the goal of founders 

Richard and Michelle Laver helping their young daughter, Kate, who was born with cerebral palsy.

As a child, she was failing to thrive because she could not tolerate any of the available tube-feeding formulas. So, the Laver’s started their own company in 2011 and developed their own formula — one that has stood the test of time.

Now, 13 years later, Kate Farms’ plant-based nutrition products aren’t just helping Kate, they are helping people all over the world — and soon they might be helping even more.

On June 26, Kate Farms officially announced it is merging its office headquarters with its state-of-the-art innovation and quality center in Goleta. 

Before, Kate Farms was located in a smaller office at the former QAD building in Summerland, but the move to a larger innovation and quality center will help the company create more plant-based nutrition products as fast as possible.

“The future for Kate Farms is developing products that meet the medical needs that people have and solve the nutrition problems that they have,” Joe Rupnow, vice president of new enterprises, told the Business Times June 24.

“This facility here helps us to do that quickly and it helps us to do that with quality.”

Brett Matthews, CEO of Kate Farms since 2015, told the Business Times June 24 that before the company invested in the innovation and quality center, in order to do all of its product development, they would go and rent machines and space in different parts of Texas or even San Luis Obispo.

“Because of that, we made the decision to really have this be the anchor of all our innovation,” Matthews said.

At the company’s new headquarters is an ultra-high temperature machine — one of only four in the country — that allows Kate Farms to test and create the “perfect” formula in both taste and quality at their facility before having it produced at mass scale at another facility later.

“This allows us to test the vitamin levels, make sure the flavor doesn’t change and make sure the quality is high. Without getting to that ultra-high temperature, you’re more so just guessing,” Rupnow said.

And sometimes that guessing ends up making the process of getting a nutrition product to market take much longer.

“And to be able to innovate with speed and quality, it is extremely helpful,” Rupnow said.

The reason for that speed is to help the company fulfill its mission of helping those who need these shakes — like young Kate.

A few years ago, Kate Farms was able to get its nutritional products into the healthcare space and now products are available at over 1,400 hospitals nationwide. 

In fact, 95% of American hospitals have access to Kate Farms products, which are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and more than 2,000 private insurance plans, and are also used by the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

“We’ve been able to launch at least 10 new products over the period of time to really meet clinical needs including one for people with diabetes, one for people with kidney failure, sterile closed systems,” Matthews said.

“Those are some key milestones we have hit and this innovation center is really going to allow us to continue to grow. We have got a very, very deep product development pipeline over the next three years and we want to continue to expand.”

Expanding is something Kate Farms has done well over the years.

Currently, the team has more than 230 employees, about 50 of which are based in Santa Barbara and will be working at the new headquarters as the team is finishing a full buildout, said Matthews.

Moreover, despite declining to give full revenue numbers, Matthews said Kate Farms has had a 106% Compound Annual Growth Rate from 2017 to 2023. 

And, even before committing to Goleta for its new headquarters, Kate Farms had no intention of leaving the area.

In fact, Matthews noted how Goleta Councilmember James Kyriaco and Assemblymember Gegg Hartt were a key reason for the company setting down in Goleta.

“There is a great source of people from UCSB, Westmont, San Luis Obispo who work at Kate Farms that definitely keeps us here but also, Santa Barbara County has a great reputation of being an area built around health, both in organic foods and nutrition as well, and I think that’s a bit part of why we are here,” Matthews said.

Kate Farms is also well-capitalized at the moment, with the company having raised more than $150 million since 2020 so an initial public offering or even another venture round is not necessary.

Instead, the hope is to continue innovating.

“Our growth has really come because our products are really working. We couldn’t be in all those hospitals and helping all these people if it wasn’t,” Matthews said.

One thing is for sure, the nutritional products are still working for Kate Laver, who will be turning 18 later this year.

“She’s thriving and all she’s had for her meals is Kate Farms five times a day through her feeding tube,” Matthews said.

“That is the core essence of who we are as a company — it is how do we help the Kate’s of the world, the hundreds of thousands of people. That is what we are most excited to continue doing.”

• email: [email protected]