As so many farmers do, Bob Jones, Jr. wears many hats at The Chef’s Garden but they all serve to enhance the family's sustainable farming practices that have made the farm one of the most innovative and well respected in the world. He is the co-owner and chief operating officer of The Chef’s Garden, which has always remained family owned and devoutly committed to its pioneering efforts in sustainable agriculture. Bob leads and champions the farm team’s cutting edge food safety and food quality programs which have made the products grown at The Chef’s Garden some of the most reliably healthy and nutritionally dense fresh vegetables in the industry.
He oversees all aspects of farm operations, farm food safety, packaging, shipping, employee immigration and sustainable energy practices. He is proud of the relationships he has fostered with the international employees who work on the farm and remains as committed to them as they are to the farm. Bob has long understood that working in synchronicity and mutual respect for each other is the best possible way to encourage long term, fulfilling relationships.
Bob has a B.S. in Agriculture from The Ohio State University and a master's degree from the Institute for Effective Church Leadership. He has been active in various industry organizations at the state and national level for over 15 year and has formerly served on the Board of the Ohio Vegetable and Potato Growers Association and subsequently on the Ohio Produce Growers & Marketers Association and OFA. Until recently, he also served on the Board of the AmericanHort, which is the leading horticulture educational association in the United States. Currently, he is serving on the board of HRI, Horticulture Research Institute, which is a subsidiary of AmericanHort.
At The Chef's Garden, Bob works closely with his father, Bob, Sr., and brother, Lee. The family has been involved in agriculture for six generations, focusing on vegetable production for over 40 years. Bob is married to Julie, whom he met as a teenager working on the family farm. They have three children: Kate, Zach and Becca.