Good weather and timely rains should result in some good-quality Ohio vegetables kicking off right on schedule by the end of June, grower-shippers say.
“Everything is looking good right now,” Chad Buurma, president of Willard, Ohio-based Buurma Farms Inc. said in early June. “We’ve had good growing weather and decent but not excessive moisture.”
Buurma Farms grows about 35 commodities, including radishes, greens, green onions, several kinds of lettuce items, beets, cucumbers and green and yellow squash.
“We like to think that our customers can come to us and fill up a truck with a variety of different things rather than have to make multiple pickups,” Buurma said. “They can stop here and get nearly everything they need in the vegetable department.”
All the commodities should be shipping by the end of June except sweet corn, which will kick off by mid-July.
Wholesale or retail customers also can throw a few pallets of sweet corn on to fill up a truck, he said. “It’s something everybody can use.”
The company serves customers up and down the Eastern Seaboard, as far south as Florida, into the New England area and west to Chicago, Wisconsin and Memphis.
“By keeping it east of the Mississippi, the freight is a savings, compared to western growers,” Buurma said.
The past 11 months have been a busy time for Ravenna, Ohio-based Sirna & Sons Produce, said Vince Sirna, vice president.
The company was acquired by Indianapolis-based FreshEdge last July and has added new computer and phone systems, upgraded GPS systems in trucks, conducted training programs and is preparing to implement a warehouse management system, Sirna said. All the changes should help the company better serve its customers, he said.
Sirna & Sons offers a variety of local products, such as peppers, squash, tomatoes and greenhouse lettuces.
“We look forward to bringing those items in,” Sirna said. “People love homegrown.”
Most items will be available by the end of June, with local sweet corn starting in early July.
Local weather has been “very inconsistent,” he said, with high temperatures in June ranging from the low 50s to well into the 80s. Rain has been decent, Sirna said, and product quality should be good.
Sales have been strong after a slow start at the beginning of the year.
“We started the year a little flat in January, but from February on, it’s been very, very good,” he said. “We continue to add new customers weekly.”
Willard-based Holthouse Farms of Ohio Inc. will start its harvest of squash, bell peppers, chili peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, Ohio green beans, hard squash, sweet corn and cabbage by the end of June and will have all commodities moving by mid-July, said Kirk Holthouse, director of sales and purchasing and one of the owners of the family business.
Growing weather has been good, and Holthouse said he expected good quality on all commodities this summer. Volume should be the same as last year.
Holthouse Farms has a number of retail, foodservice and wholesale customers in the Ohio Valley and in western Pennsylvania to New Jersey, New York City and into Detroit, Chicago and Kentucky.
Inflation and a volatile economy have made an impact throughout Ohio’s vegetable industry.
“Prices definitely were outrageous during the whole COVID period, but they seem to have stabilized,” Buurma said. “Unfortunately, they stabilized at a higher rate than we would like to see them.”
Costs of packaging, materials and freight seem to have leveled off from last year, but they’re still pretty high, he said.
Finding workers has not been an issue, “but the labor cost is certainly high.”
The company has not experienced a drop in sales.
“We’re fortunate to have some good retailers locally in Ohio and Michigan who promote homegrown really well,” he said.
“They know that it’s fresh,” he added. “I can cut product today and have it at a retailer’s warehouse by first thing in the morning.”
Sirna & Sons also is doing well.
“Business has been good, even with the economic uncertainty,” Sirna said. “Labor has impacted us, but we have learned to work as efficiently as possible.”
Up to 80% of the company’s business is with foodservice, and the firm is keeping price increases at a minimum so as not to disrupt customers’ operations, he said.
Holthouse Farms also has had to contend with inflation.
“The cost to produce an item never goes down,” Holthouse said. “It continuously increases.”
The cost of labor, containers, health insurance and all input costs continue to rise.
The company has been able to raise its prices in recent years, “but they’re not as proportionately higher as we would like,” he said.
Holthouse said a key to a successful produce operation is to not grow a product unless there is a customer for it.
“That’s when you have bad markets,” he said.
