The PINES green ingredient team, as well as most of our farms, state-of-the-art dryers, milling equipment, laboratory, and our shipping facility, are located north of Lawrence, Kansas, in the same site as Cerophyl Laboratories, which was founded in 1932.

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Cerophyl Laboratories first grew out of research from Charles Schnabel and other scientists, whose research into wheat, barley, rye, and oats led to the world’s first vitamin. Although we have long since replaced Dr. Schnabel’s lab equipment with state-of-the-art equipment, we still use his lab. His legacy is one we’re proud to continue both now and well into the future.

PINES tests each 1,000 kg. lot at the time of harvest and again before we ship the greens to you to ensure the freshest, highest quality wheatgrass, barley grass, oat grass, rye grass, and alfalfa of any grower anywhere in the world. Our 8-step process ensures not only unmatched quality, but also means your products come from 100% organic farmers who truly want to protect the planet.

PINES is the only grower that believes in these earth-friendly values. We have never used toxic chemicals in any of our fields. In fact, more than 40 years ago, PINES helped write the organic standards for Kansas. Those standards, written in 1982, served as one of the models for the final standards in the National Organic Program of 1990.

As we’ve grown, our message has resonated throughout the natural food industry. At first, we didn’t consider providing our quality green ingredients to other brands. Even so, due to our success with our message of “eat more greens,” other companies began to come to us. They wanted to purchase our cereal grass and alfalfa in bulk as an ingredient for their own products. Because we wanted to see the best quality green ingredients in the natural products marketplace, we increased our production so we could supply these other brands. In fact, many successful green superfood brands on the market today started by purchasing from PINES. And those that care about quality continue to purchase from us.

It was Charles Schnabel who discovered the nutritional density of wheatgrass and other cereal grasses. He devoted his life to the study of the young grasses of wheat, barley, oats, and rye. His research led to the discovery of the short, once-a-year period known as the “jointing stage”—the most nutrient-dense period for wheatgrass.

Dr. Schnabel also found the way to grow greens: slowly over the winter in the correct climate and using manners that are optimal for its growth. During its nutrient-dense jointing stage, he then dried the grasses into powder and tablets for better digestion. Today, we grow our greens with the same high standards Dr. Schnabel set, in the way nature intends.

PINES is the only cereal grass grower in the United States that follows Dr. Schnabel’s standards, harvesting just once a year, and only at the jointing stage. We are also the only grower with an eight-step process to ensure the highest-quality greens. Even as new knowledge and research about the importance of prebiotics has emerged, Schnabel’s methods and research into cereal grass science have stood the test of time.

Charles Schnabel’s work led to a body of research on greens that later started the current craze for green superfoods.

Dr. Schnabel’s work was praised by authors who used it as a scientific basis for their books, including Ann Wigmore and Viktoras Kulvinskas, though neither writer fully understood the high quality greens PINES provides the industry. It was popular wheatgrass author Steve Meyerowitz who dubbed Schnabel “the father of wheatgrass.”