Basil Mills, the founder of Mills Distributing, died Jan. 14, 2022, at the age of 91. Mills was the Chairman of the Western Growers Board of Directors in 1997; in 2002, he received WG’s most prestigious award, the Award of Honor.
Mills Distributing was one of the Salinas Valley’s leading vegetable grower-shippers for decades; Mills started the company when he was 28 years old. Starting out as a one-man cauliflower brokerage, the company eventually expanded to ship 10 million cartons of more than 20 commodities annually.
