Ingredients & Sourcing

Everything we make starts with a question most companies never have to answer: who grew this, and where.

We can tell you. Our ingredients come from Southern California, from more than twenty different crops and native plants, grown largely on generational family farms. Some of those families we have known for generations ourselves. That is not a marketing arrangement. It is what happens when a company stays in one agricultural region long enough to become part of it.

Sourced as locally as possible

Our rule is simple: source as locally as we can, as often as we can. Not because local sounds good on a label, but because the distance between a grove and a kitchen shows up in the jar.

Southern California is one of the great growing regions on earth, and most people never taste it properly. Fruit bred to survive a cross-country truck is a different product from fruit picked ripe twenty minutes away. When we say you can taste the region, we mean the region specifically, not California in the abstract.

Rare, heirloom, and endangered varieties

A grocery store carries the varieties that ship well and sell predictably. That is a small fraction of what actually grows here.

We work with rare and heirloom varieties, and in certain cases varieties that are genuinely endangered, the kind that survive in a handful of small groves because one family decided not to pull the trees out. These are the ingredients that make a tasting experience impossible to replicate, because in many cases nobody else has access to them at all.

This is why our marmalades taste distinct from one another rather than variations on orange. Minneola tangelo, Melogold and Duncan grapefruit, Meyer and Eureka lemon, Satsuma mandarin, Navel and Valencia orange are not interchangeable citrus. They are separate fruits with separate characters, and we treat them that way.

More than citrus

The Citrus Belt gave the region its name, but our sourcing reaches well beyond it. Orange blossom, rose, lavender, and violet for our fragrances and botanicals. California natives. Date and prickly pear. Over twenty crops in total, each chosen because it grows exceptionally well here and because someone nearby grows it exceptionally well.

Why this matters beyond flavor

Small California family farms are under real pressure. Land is worth more as housing than as orchard, and every year some of these groves come out.

Our products are designed to send money back into the local economies that created them. When a small grower has a reliable buyer for an unusual heirloom variety, keeping those trees in the ground becomes a rational decision rather than a sentimental one. That is the practical version of preservation, and it is the only version that lasts.

Buying from us is a small vote for the continued existence of a farming region that took a century to build and could be lost in a decade.

Made in California

Our products are made in California and made in the USA, produced by hand in Southern California from locally sourced California produce. Ingredient lists appear in full on every product page, because you should be able to read exactly what is in the jar before you buy it.

Frequently asked questions

Where do Old California Botanicals ingredients come from?

Southern California, primarily from generational family farms in and around the region. We source as locally as possible across more than twenty crops and native plants.

Do you use heirloom or rare varieties?

Yes. We work with rare and heirloom varieties, and in some cases endangered ones that are not commercially available through grocery channels.

Are your products made in the USA?

Yes. Everything is made in Southern California from locally sourced California produce.

Why do your marmalades taste different from each other?

Because they are made from genuinely different fruit, not the same base with different labels. Each citrus variety has its own balance of sweetness, acid, and peel bitterness.

Can I find out which farm a specific product came from?

Get in touch and ask. We know our growers, and we are happy to talk about where a particular batch came from.

Explore

Read more about the family and the region on our Our Story page, or see how the citrus varieties compare on our California marmalade guide.