G&D Wallace/Wallace Farms will commence its potato harvest around Sept. 8. Jack Wallace, co-owner and sales manager, said all indications point to a very successful year. “This has been a good growing season,” he told The Produce News in mid-August. “We had a good weather window for planting, and the summer has been nice as well.”

The company, located in Burlington, WA, in the heart of the Skagit Maritime Valley, was founded by brothers George and Dick Wallace, who farmed the same land farmed by their father, Robert Wallace, and their uncles, George and Tom Wallace. Today, the company grows and markets conventional red, white, gold and purple potatoes as well as organic red and russet potatoes.

The Skagit Valley has over 93,000 acres of active farmland. Skagit River comprises the third-largest watershed on the West Coast of the continental United States with a delta graced by working farms and wildlife refuges. The Skagit Flats is one of the most popular areas for birding in Washington state.

The company’s production acreage has remained fairly constant over the years. Wallace said the broad categories of potato varieties are likewise similar from year to year. “But, as always, we have dedicated acreage to testing new varieties within those broad categories,” he commented. “We like to stay on top of changes so that, as new varieties are developed, we can offer them to our customers.” The mix of varieties grown on the acreage changes from year to year in response to customer demand.

Wallace said potatoes have been irrigated for most of the current season. “The size profile will be fairly typical, producing a good percentage of A size product with an adequate number of B and C size potatoes as well,” he stated. “Tonnage will most likely be lower than usual as a result of the dry summer. On the bright side, the color and overall quality is outstanding. We are eager to get started with another sales season.”

Wallace Farms continues to work to streamline its operations. “We have carried out a major renovation to our potato washing equipment over the past two summers with a view toward reducing damage to potatoes as they are handled and to eliminate downtime,” he went on to say. “Once the season commences, we do not want any interruptions to get in the way of shipping.”

The harvest is expected to continue until May.

Potatoes are marketed under the “SAMISH RIVER” and “SKAGIT MEADOWS” brands to retailers, wholesalers and foodservice customers throughout North America. “We do pack in our customers’ private label bags and cartons,” Wallace added. “We can simultaneously fill six carton labels at once through our automated system.”

Customers can take advantage of a full range of packing options to meet their needs. “We will offer more packages for each label,” Wallace said. “On the organic side, we will have more small consumer packs.”

On the export side, product movement into Canada has been good, and Wallace said the company continues to eye new export opportunities and strengthen its existing programs.

Food-safety considerations are equally important. “We take food safety seriously because it matters to our customers,” Wallace said. “We devote enormous resources to ensure that our potatoes are grown, harvested, packed and shipped in accordance with the latest food-safety procedures and practices. Because all of the potatoes sold under our brands are actually grown and packed by Wallace Farms, we are able to credibly guarantee the safety of our product — unlike many farms or commercial packinghouses that sell product sourced through brokers, grown by several different growers, or that outsource crucial activities such as chemical applications. Wallace Farms is a farm in the traditional sense in that we maintain direct control of all of our potato fields from planting through harvest.”

The company’s packinghouse, harvest crew and all potato fields are managed according to strict food-safety standards. “We are still PrimusGFS certified, and our average audit score over the past nine years is 98.76 percent,” he said.