Southern Valley Fruit & Vegetable Inc. may see about a 25% increase in spring vegetable volume this year, said Dug Schwalls, director of business development for the Norman Park, Ga.-based company.
The company had begun harvest of cabbage and squash by May 7 and expected to start cucumber harvest by mid-May.
“Everything is starting to jump,” he said May 7.
The company, with expected Georgia produce shipments of near 11 million boxes this year, has big volume of cucumbers, squash, zucchini, yellow squash, sweet corn and bell peppers, he said. The company has trial acreage of organic production for fresh vegetables, and some of the harvest from those fields will be available every week, he said.
The firm uses the H-2A program and expects to have sufficient labor this year, he said.
Southern Valley also has added a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points-certified room to create value-added sweet corn consumer packs, he said.
