For decades, Bland Farms LLC in Glennville, GA, has been known for its famous sweet onions and Vidalia has been the king of the crop. With demand for sweet potatoes ever increasing, the company believes consumers are ready for another sweet Vidalia treat that’s a perfect complement to Bland’s year-round onion program.

The plan is to co-market Bland Farms sweet onions and sweet potatoes where possible. While Vidalia is known as the sweet onion capital of the world, sweet potatoes have long been part of the area agriculture. Bland began dabbling in commercial sweet potato production over the past couple of seasons and the results have been so good the company is ramping up its program in a big way this year.

“Some foods are fads, some are staples. Sweet potatoes have always been popular, but with all the good news about their health benefits, they’ve gone beyond a fad,” said owner Delbert Bland.

The plan is to co-market Bland Farms sweet onions and sweet potatoes where possible.

“They go together perfectly,” Bland said. “They can ship on the same truck. Retailers can turn product over more quickly with say, two shipments of sweet potatoes and sweet onions together a week than they can getting one shipment of onions and one shipment of sweet potatoes a week.”

Ideally, Bland will market its fresh sweet potatoes under its “Vidalia Brands” label (the subsidiary division that also carries the company’s line of dressings, dips, condiments, snacks and frozen items) to help consumers make a connection between Vidalia-grown sweet potatoes and their famous cousin.

Bland has also created an ingenious dual bin that will help retailers maximize sales of sweet potatoes and sweet onions. Due in stores shortly, the divided bin displays both products with messaging promoting both, along with other point-of-sale support.

While there will be holiday-themed messaging heading into this season, Bland hopes consumers will quickly realize sweet potatoes and sweet onions are a perfect pairing anytime — and that retailers will realize the benefit of promotion at times other than the holidays.

“Sweet potatoes rule the holiday season,” Bland said. “You can’t think of Thanksgiving without thinking of sweet potatoes. But they continue to increase in popularity and that’s not going to stop.”

Bland and wife Sandra, who heads up Vidalia Brands, are busy thinking of ways to continue to move the sweet potato program forward.

“We’re pretty excited about it,” Bland said. “It’s a great crop for us because it comes at a perfect time and all the people here are excited to get the opportunity to be involved with it. We learn a lot about sweet potatoes every day and we’ve got some beautiful sweet potatoes coming off this season.”

There is one thing consumers and retailers can be sure of — “We’re gonna be sweet, whether it’s onions or potatoes,” Bland said. “I believe we can co-market that way. There’s no reason why you can’t have a bag of onions and a bag of sweet potatoes set beside each other in the store.”