Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables ripe ripe strawberries in a basket
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables Spinach in the field
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables ripe ripe strawberries in the field
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables Rainbow Chard Being Held in Hands
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables Pumpkin IN The field
Guide to All Things Caneberry
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Fruit Blueberry Flowers In Spring
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables Kale in Field
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables Green Beans in Field
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables Green Beans in Field
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Fruit Cranberries in Bog
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables Corn In Field
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Blueberries In the Field In Spring
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Farming Beets In The Field
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Fruit Oregon Marionberries on the vine
Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Butternut Squash In The Field
White Cauliflower In The Field Stahlbush Island Farms Sustainable Frozen Vegetables Cauliflower

Meet The Chambers Family

Our owners, Bill and Karla Chambers, started with 2 crops, about 300 acres and a dream in 1985. Today, Stahlbush cultivates 5,000 acres in Oregon and offers the freshest individually quick frozen fruits, vegetables, grains & legumes available.

Since that day back in 1985, Bill and Karla have instilled the same strong values of resilience, innovation, patience and determination as well as unmatched dedication to preserving our land to their children, who will, one day, take over the family farm.

Quality Matters!

We began supplying ingredients to the two toughest industries, baby food companies and the Japanese market in the 1980s. We have a robust food safety program as a result. We even go through the most rigorous food safety audit in the industry SQF Level III and scored a 97 (excellent) this year.

Locking in Nutrition

Stahlbush Frozen is SO Fresh! As the farmers and the processors, we are able to leave our products in the field or on the vine until perfectly ripe. We freeze it immediately after harvest, sealing in the perfect flavor.

Art And Sustainable Farming

“Years ago, Bill and I went on a trip to Montana. We were staying at Triple Creek Lodge during a fall fly fishing and artist workshop event. It was a cold, fall day. Bill and our friend, Eric, went fly fishing while my dear friend, Carrie, and I spent the day with three professional artists. I enjoyed spending time with these artists so much that I never went fishing. When I returned home, I bought art supplies and just kept painting!

I have never had a formal art class, which is why my art is considered “naïve.” Acrylic paint is my favorite medium because of the rich colors and thick textures that it can bring to a canvas. I use my husband’s house tools to achieve the three dimensional quality that is characteristic of my work. Farm animals, landscapes and desert flowers are prominent in my paintings because they are reminiscent of the past, present and future. I mimic the colors from the farm in an effort to highlight the raw, powerful beauty of farming healthy, nutritious foods.

My paintings are now in fine art galleries across the country, including Arnot Gallery in New York City and Gallery 444 in San Francisco. I have been featured in Art World News, the largest art publication in the world, five times. My fine art has been featured in several museum exhibits and juried competitions. The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, Oregon has displayed my work several times in different shows.”

– Karla S. Chambers, Artist & Co-Owner of Stahlbush Island Farms

Learn More

Sustainability

Sustainable Farming Soil Health

Soil Health

With each growing season, we use conservation tillage to reduce erosion.  We also plant cover crops to return nitrogen to the soil and build organic matter. We even apply digestate from our biogas plant to our fields as it acts as an organic fertilizer and naturally increases microbial activity and builds overall soil health.

Water Conservation

We continue to improve our irrigation, using weather, soil moisture and evapotranspiration data to track water use and needs. We have implemented automation systems that allow us to access real-time data that automatically controls and schedules our irrigation based on the needs of each plant.

Wildlife Habitat and Biodiversity

We plant native species that attract pollinators like bumblebees and plant cover crops in the winter that keep the blue herons on the farm year-round. We have a thriving blue heron rookery or habitat on the farm.

Social Responsibility and Employee Well-Being

We have programs and benefits in place for our employees to ensure job satisfaction and fulfillment. We also have programs in place to improve our local community, for instance we donate one million servings to local food banks every year.

Innovation

We were the first farm ever to be certified sustainable by the Food Alliance. We have always been early adopters of new technology. Stahlbush was the first farm in Oregon to use GPS technology and the first to build a biogas plant that generates electricity using agricultural by-product in North America.

Our Biogas Plant

At Stahlbush, we generate electricity from our fruit and vegetable by-product, things like corn husks and cobs, using our biogas plant. The biogas plant not only generates electricity, which we use to power the processing plant, but also generates steam that we use in our boilers, hot water for sanitation and hot air to dry our pumpkin seeds. The leftover material from this process leaves us with water for irrigation and a rich fertilizer that we spread back into the fields to nurture next year’s crops. “There is no such thing as waste, only underutilized resources.” – Bill Chambers

Curious about just how much waste we convert? Here are some fun facts!

The biogas plant has converted 295,163  tons of agricultural byproduct from 2009 to 2019. This agricultural byproduct is used to fertilize our fields and is ORGANIC!

The crop that generates the most electricity is SPINACH. It generates 1,650 kWh per ton.