For more than 75 years, Bland Farms has done one thing exceptionally well: grow sweet onions that taste like home. Long before “farm‑to‑table” became a buzzword, the Bland family was already living it—three generations deep in the sandy soils of southeast Georgia, raising Vidalia sweet onions with the same values they raised their kids on. Real food. Real work. Real family.

Because a good meal is more than ingredients. It’s a ritual. A reason to gather. A reminder that the best things in life still come from the ground up.

And that’s the part Bland Farms love most—being invited into family kitchens across the country. Delbert Bland, owner of Bland Farms, said, “When a retailer chooses Bland Farms, they’re choosing more than a product. They’re choosing a legacy of growers who believe that feeding families and bringing folks to the table—through moments big, small, and wonderfully ordinary—is the root of why we do what we do.”

Innovation, But Make It Southern
Of course, tradition doesn’t mean standing still. As CEO Troy Bland puts it, “Once you plow an onion up, the clock starts.” And at Bland Farms, the last decade has been spent rewriting that clock.

The company recently purchased the Vidalia facility it had leased for years, expanding its role within Bland Farms’ annual storage footprint. Once fully upgraded, the facility will become the largest sweet onion storage operation in the industry—surpassing even the home site in Glennville—with capacity for more than 400,000 bushels. Combined, the two facilities will bring total storage capacity to approximately 1.5 million boxes per year.

The facility’s secret weapon is a secondary glycol cooling system—a hot loop and a cold loop that runs glycol at temperatures of 120° and 28°. “What used to take us almost a month to get onions to temperature now takes about 14 days from plowing to harvest. What once took four weeks now takes just seven to ten days,” said Troy.

This increased capacity allows Bland Farms to move onions out of the field and into storage far more efficiently. As Troy said, “We’re trying to shorten the traditional ‘fresh season’ for Vidalias—getting them harvested and into storage as quickly as possible. When we say fresh, we mean very fresh—within seven days of harvest. In the past, people considered the end of May part of the ‘fresh season,’ but by then, it’s no longer a high-quality product.”

By removing the most vulnerable window of the traditional fresh season—when mid‑May weather in southern Georgia often brings crop‑damaging rain—Bland Farms gains more control and provides the longer shelf life retailers rely on. With seven times the drying capacity, the farm can harvest earlier, avoid weather-related challenges, and deliver onions that are truly fresh—within seven days of leaving the field.

For retailers, that means longer shelf life, stronger pack-outs, and a product that delivers the same quality on the shelf as it does on the plate.

Rooted in Community, Growing for the Future
At the end of the day, this isn’t innovation for innovation’s sake. It’s about protecting the people and the place that made Vidalias famous. “When we sell Vidalia Sweet Onions, we’re investing back into the people who put southeast Georgia on the map,” Troy said.

And that’s the heart of Bland Farms: raised right, rooted deep, and always growing forward.

See What’s Next at Southern Exposure
Dig up more of what’s happening on and off the soil of Bland Farms and what’s coming next.

Stop by Booth 106 at Southern Exposure to meet the team, explore Bland Farms’ Premium Sweet Onions and Sand Candy Sweet Potatoes, and get a first look at the refreshed Vidalia Brands. Discover how Bland Farms is helping retailers deliver the freshest, highest-quality ingredients to families nationwide.