For years, people have looked to Orrin Cope Produce, Inc. in Homestead, FL for top quality fresh Southern vegetables and premium service. Now, they look to Seminole Growers for the same things.

Cope Produce has been a grower agent for many years, and will continue that service as Seminole Growers.

Orrin Cope Produce Inc., now Seminole Growers, sold 800,000 bushels of sweet yellow and white Georgia corn last year. (Photo courtesy of USDA/ARS)“It’s working really well, we’re excited about that,” said Diane Cope, who owned the company with husband Orrin. Now, their daughter, Kim Powell, is at the helm, but “it will be the same good service people have always gotten from Cope Produce. It’s the same people, the same friendly faces, the same good service, it’s just a different company.”

Seminole operates from two locations in Florida and in south Georgia, “and we’re just really looking forward to getting back to Georgia again this year,” Ms. Cope said.

While Seminole trades in green beans, pole beans, several varieties of squash, okra, pepper, cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes and mixed vegetables from its Florida locations, the Georgia branch deals solely in corn, corn and more corn.

“We are very excited to be back in Georgia again this year. We had about 800,000 bushels of Georgia yellow and white sweet corn last spring. We were very happy with the product there and with all the people in Georgia and we appreciate all the customers that we were able to sell the product to. We’re very excited and I hope the growers have a good year. That’s our goal: to do the very best job for them,” she said.

“All we have in Georgia is corn. In Florida this season, we’ve had the yellow squash, green beans, pole beans, crooked neck squash, and we would love to have some of the other vegetables in Georgia,” Ms. Cope explained, “but we went to Michigan to try to look for some summer business; from Hendersonville, NC, to Benton Harbor, MI, we saw thousands and thousands of acres of feed corn, soybeans and peanuts, a lot of government-backed crops, but we didn’t see many row crops. It’s good for the farmer, I am glad for the farmer to survive, but we would still like to have some Georgia row crops. But we’re going to open up in Hendersonville this summer and we’ll have some row crops there, and we expect to have a lot of tomatoes.”

Seminole plans to begin harvesting its Georgia corn May 15. “Our crew’s going up [from Florida] about May 10 and we’ll run from May 15 to July 15. Last year it ended right after the Fourth of July, because it got so hot, but hopefully we’ll be able to run a little longer this year.”

And while the Copes have turned over day-to-day operations to daughter Kim, “We’re still involved, whether we retired or not. My husband has always loved this job. His dad was a farmer and his grandfather before him, and one of our grandsons has a garden in his backyard every year. Even though he’s just 14, he’s always out with a little garden. He’s so proud of his vegetables. I think sometimes it’s just something you inherit, that love of the earth and growing things.”