CARMEL, Calif. — When Myra and Drew Goodman first stuffed their organic baby greens in plastic bags two decades ago, they were just trying to keep their farm afloat and create a quick, healthy alternative to a steady diet of pizza and meals on the go.

They never envisioned that Earthbound Farm's bagged salad would revolutionize the way America eats salad and land them at the top of a leafy green food empire.

"We built our business little by little to meet a demand and didn't realize it was a big business until it had already happened," said Drew Goodman. "Growing organic has paid off."

Two decades later, pre-washed greens pioneered by the Goodmans have catapulted from specialty markets to the aisles of every major grocery store and helped make organic a household name and an $8 billion annual business.

"They changed the organic game," said Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation. "You used to only be able to get fresh organic products in small stores supplied by an independent farmer. Earthbound ships train loads and plane loads."

Ready-to-eat bags of produce now gross $2.8 billion per year and Earthbound continues to lead in the organic department. They produce 73 percent of the greens and baby spinach that go into the $202 million-per-year organic bagged salad market, according to data from ACNielsen.

Earthbound has seen income soar from $13 million dollars in 1995 to $365 million in 2005. Some critics charge large operations like Earthbound with crushing the profit margins of small farms that were the heart of organic farming when it first took off decades ago.

Liz Bourret, who works as a buyer with organic produce distributor Veritable Vegetable, said the small growers are not being pushed out as much as being forced to adapt, focusing on specialty crops, and moving away from mainstays such as lettuce that large growers can produce cheaply.

Earthbound was also able to stay ahead of the competition by coming up with new ways to pack produce, removing oxygen and adding nitrogen to the bag so greens stay fresh longer and developing harvesting equipment specifically for gathering baby lettuces.

"They used 21st century technology to make organic an available product and it paid off for them," Scowcroft said.