“We are excited about the upcoming Vidalia season,” said Mark Breimeister, sweet onion specialist for Idaho Falls, ID-based Potandon Produce LLC, one of the nation’s leading shippers of potatoes and onions. Breimeister is based in Detroit.

Potandon, which has exclusive rights to the Green Giant Fresh brand for potatoes and onions, will be shipping the Vidalia sweets under the Green Giant Fresh label.

“I came aboard to assist in sweet onions and growing the category with Potandon a year ago, and I am very pleased and confident to build on last year’s successes and get a growing market penetration for the Green Giant sweet,” Breimeister said.

“The updates from our growers are that they are very confident in the quality of our crop. It should be plentiful, It should be early, and we should be able to be there for the full duration of the Vidalia Onion Season” which hopefully will “stretch throughout the summer,” he told The Produce News on Feb. 28.

The official start date for shipping Vidalia onions is specified by the Vidalia Onion Committee each season. Typically the season runs from around mid-April to early September, but that varies from year to year.

Potandon will be ready to ship Green Giant-brand Georgia-grown sweet onions with the Vidalia designation “on the date the Vidalia Onion Committee gives us for the starting date of the Vidalia crop,” Breimeister said.

But the company’s start date for shipping Georgia sweets without the Vidalia designation will be earlier than that.

“We will be selling Georgia-grown Green Giant label sweet onions probably the first week in April,” he said.

“Quite frankly, I am confident that we have one of the very best growers in the Vidalia program,” Breimeister continued. “I think if you put a really good looking onion in a really nice graphic Green Giant label, it does nothing but reinforce to the consumer the kind of quality and the kind of programs that a retailer puts in place to support the consumer.”

“Potandon will be shipping the product nation-wide,” he added. “Fortunately, we have a good customer base of retailers as far as the West Coast.”

Potandon is offering the Vidalia sweets in a full range of pack styles and sizes, depending on customer preference. “We don’t want to prescribe to a customer how we should package things,” Breimeister said. “Primarily we are going to be doing a 40-pound graphic cartons and full-wrap high-graphic bags in any size that the customer might want. We can also do a wine glass label bags in Vexar if the customer wants it.”

Potandon has been shipping product under the Green Giant brand since the company’s inception in 1995. According to Steve Elfering, vice president of operations. The Vidalia onion program is yet another offering from Potandon to get the Green Giant brand “out in front of consumers and the trade,” build recognition for what is already one of the most widely recognized and trusted consumer brands, and increase awareness “as to the quality onions and potatoes that we offer to wholesale, retail, and foodservice,” Breimeister noted.