RETAIL : For Knott’s, Farm Foods Operation Is Becoming Berry Good Business

Hoping to counter the lackluster summer tourism season, the folks at Knott’s Berry Farm are already promoting the Knott’s 1993 Holiday Gift Catalog, now in its 44th annual edition. The catalogue features Knott’s jams, jellies, preserves, syrups, salad dressings and other gourmet foods.

Knott’s Berry Farm Foods produces more than 180 premium food products and distributes them at retail and food-service outlets nationwide and through its catalogue sales program.

Food is an increasingly big business for Knott’s, whose Farm Foods operation has seen sales increase by 45% since 1988, including a 19% increase in the past year alone.

Knott’s officials will not discuss specific revenue or profit figures for the food-sales operation. However, the privately held company recently told a food industry trade magazine that sales are “somewhere between $50 million and $100 million,” Knott’s spokesman Bob Ochsner said.