We have kept in close contact with Rachel Sullivan, as she worked at Frog Hollow Farms for many years…
Where Are They Now: Rachel Sullivan Update
Suzie Sullivan (Rachel’s mom), Rachel, and Kathy Webster at Acme Bread Company.
10/21/2025
By: Kathy Webster and Rachel Sullivan
I am always inspired to learn about the career paths that past TomKat Ranch interns and apprentices have taken, especially when they have continued in food systems. We have kept in close contact with Rachel Sullivan who worked as an intern at TomKat from June to December 2016. After that, she worked at Frog Hollow Farms for many years. I was excited when she shared that she would return to her family business, Acme Bread.
Rachel shared her thoughts on how her time at TomKat Ranch helped shape where she is today.
How did you find out about TomKat Ranch?
In 2015, as I was wrapping up my junior year studying Sustainable Agriculture at Cornell, I reached out to Michael Pollan to ask him if he knew of any particularly interesting regenerative agriculture internships in the Bay Area and he pointed me right to TKREF. As I read through their website, I became really excited and curious about their work at the intersection of ranching, soil science and biology and I applied for the internship. Unfortunately, I was not accepted that year, but I decided to reapply one year later and was very lucky to be selected. It actually turned out to be better this way, because I had graduated from college, and I was able to extend my internship for 3 more months through the winter.
How did you get involved in agriculture/ranching in the first place?
I became interested in agriculture growing up, working in my family’s bread bakery and at Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, always appreciating the farmers who grew the food we ate, but feeling somewhat disconnected from them, never having first hand experience growing food myself. My grandfather was an apricot farmer in the Santa Clara Valley, and I was also inspired by my older sister who took sustainable agriculture coursework and worked at Fairview Gardens at UC Santa Barbara. Before working at TKREF I worked at Toluma Farms and Farmstead Creamery in Tomales Bay as well as City Slicker Farms in West Oakland.
Rachel standing in a field of Giusto’s Vita Grain wheat.
What was your favorite memory at TomKat Ranch?
Looking back on my time there, I think about how special it was to get to explore the vast landscape, but on such an intimate level. The ranch lands extend almost 2000 acres, with so many different microclimates and types of topography from steep grassy hillsides, to lush ravines, and secret groves of apple trees. Because I focused my time at TKREF on building a soil sampling dataset, I spent a lot of time navigating on foot or ATV to completely random GPS coordinates, touring around the land beyond the main pathways and roads, to pretty unique and remote areas. Also, moving the herd on horseback was really special and something I will probably never have the opportunity to do again. Thank you Stacy Claitor, for teaching me how to ride horses!
Who was the most influential person during your time at TomKat Ranch?
This question is so hard to answer since everyone at the ranch inspired and taught me so much! Right off the bat though, Doug Millar became a very important mentor to me. I remember sitting down with Doug in his lab during my first week at the ranch and geeking out on the microscopes—chatting about humus (not the edible kind), nutrient cycling, and microbes. He empowered me to pick a project to focus on during my internship. Together, we designed a soil sampling project, which eventually led to some cool findings about deep carbon sequestration and microbiological communities in the ranch soils.
Rachel selling her family's bread at San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.
Where are you and what are you doing now?
I am now living in Berkeley and working at my family’s bakery, The Acme Bread Company, helping manage production and operations at our wholesale operation in West Berkeley as well as our bakery in the Ferry Building. Even though I grew up in the bakery, I have only worked in this position for a little under 2 years, so I still feel ‘new’ here and am consistently humbled by the talented work of our team of bakers, maintenance and cleaning staff, many of whom have worked at the company for 20-30 years keeping things moving to provide fresh, consistent, and delicious bread every single day to our customers!
How did your TomKat Ranch experience shape where you are/what you are doing now?
My time working at TKREF gave me hope for the possibilities of growing healthy soil, happy animals, and nutritious food, while sequestering carbon and also literally prompted the next steps in my career.
While I was finishing up my time at TomKat Ranch, I met Farmer Al of Frog Hollow Farm at a panel about reviving local grains in our Bay Area food/ag system. At one point in this discussion, farmers were talking about how measuring carbon sequestration wasn’t feasible on the average farm. I spoke up, referencing the project I had done at TomKat and Farmer Al was totally into it. He asked me to visit the farm and soon hired me as his Farming Assistant, with a focus on building a soil health dataset. I stayed and worked at Frog Hollow for 7 years, becoming the Assistant Farm Manager after some years. During my time there, I managed the production of two different wheat crops (Summit 515 and Sonora varieties), which we planted as ground cover during the time of transitioning some neighboring land that was previously farmed conventionally, to planting out more regenerative organic orchards.
Now, working at Acme, after having had first-hand experience with the wheat growing side of things (and experiencing how difficult it is to accomplish at a small-medium scale!), I have a greater understanding and appreciation for the team of expert growers and millers who supply our amazingly high quality, consistent, and nutrient-packed organic flour. Since 1999 Acme has used 100% organic flour in our bread. Nicky Giusto, of Central Milling, has explained to me that Acme’s strong stance and high demand for organic flour since the nineties has been influential in converting many thousands of acres of conventional wheat grown in our country, to organic. Last year, in 2024, Organic California-grown Yecora Rojo wheat made up 100% of our whole wheat flour as well as 25% of our white flour blend. This came out to over 1.8 million pounds CA-grown flour used at Acme in one year! I feel proud to work for this company, and so grateful for all that I learned at TomKat, which helped shape the perspective I bring with me coming back into the family business.
