Spotlight on Marmalade Grove Citrus
When I attend Fancy Food Shows, I’m meeting with hundreds of incredible food purveyors from all over the world! At this trade-only show, I usually start on one side of a huge hall and walk for three solid days trying to see everything that’s being exhibited. This really pays off because a few years ago on the last day and on the last aisle I met Peter Karpushin. He was showing a gorgeous display of fresh citrus from the Ojai Valley in California. We had a wonderful conversation, and I was quite sure that Peter’s citrus would be my best find of that show. As expected, during the past few years I have included his Satsuma mandarins, Pixie Tangerines, Cara Cara Oranges, and Valencia Oranges in my Menus and Music catalogs.
In pursuit of the American dream, Peter Karpushin moved to the United States 30 years ago from Ukraine and purchased a farm in the Ojai Valley of California. He started his Marmalade Grove company in response to a crisis that hit his citrus groves during the Covid-19 pandemic. Supply chain issues had left him with 200,000 pounds of tangerines from his farm that he couldn’t sell. Peter decided to try and save these tangerines by using them to make marmalade. He bought a 40-foot refrigerated container to keep the fruit cool and started hand making Pixie Marmalade using a 100-year-old recipe. Today, Peter is selling a variety of amazing marmalades along with fresh tangerines, oranges, clementines, mandarins, lemons, and grapefruits that are hand-picked at perfect ripeness to capture the bright flavors of the California sun.
Peter is optimistic about the future. As a farmer, he’s sure that the land in the beautiful Ojai Valley has so much more to offer, and he thinks California has as much potential as Italy and France for making artisanal food products at the highest level.
Through the 2026 winter season, Menus and Music is offering the following two Citrus Boxes!
The Satsuma Box is filled with five pounds of Satsumas, a kind of cousin to tangerines and clementines. They are bursting with delicious, honeyed sweetness, very easy to peel, and almost always seedless. This delicious fruit is rich in vitamin C and known to improve skin health and reduce inflammation.
The Citrus Club Box has a 7-pound selection of peak-season citrus such as Clementines, Cara Cara Oranges, Navel Oranges, Meyer Lemons, and Satsuma mandarins. The fruit comes from sun-soaked groves in Ojai Valley, where ocean breezes, rich soil, and cool mountain nights ripen the fruit to perfect sweetness. Also included is a jar of Pixie Tangerine Marmalade. Enjoy some California sunshine delivered right to your home during the cold winter months!