Idaho-E. Oregon Spanish Sweet storage onion growers and other industry members have long relied on two university/Extension-affiliated groups of researchers and their training, equipment and facilities.

The relationships, in fact, have been in place not just for years but for several generations.

In the company of family and friends, Ray Obendorf celebrated his 100th birthday in June, and to the delight of everyone, he shows few signs of slowing down.

Now that the pandemic is behind us and the universe is supremely health conscious, it’s obvious that refining our diet to include more onions is just good common sense.

Onions boast numerous healthy attributes — high vitamin C content, good dietary fiber and folic acid, low sodium, no fat and other desirable qualities — but it’s worth noting that mankind has turned to the globes to boost health for millennia.

Since expanding their onion-growing operation to that of grower/packer/shipper in 2019, brothers Phil and Brock Obendorf have consistently strengthened the company’s vertical integration each year. This season, Parma, ID-baed Obendorf has made changes to both the packingshed and farm.

“We are continually making improvements in the packingshed to increase the quality of product our customers are receiving,” Phil Obendorf said. “While they may not be huge capital projects, we are identifying small areas of improvement that we hope our customers will recognize.”

Riverfront Produce, the packing/shipping arm of a vertically integrated operation with its sister company, NJ Gomeza Farms, based in Nyssa, OR, ramped up its packing program this year to include Idaho potatoes and upgrades to equipment and storages.

In addition, the Payette, ID-based company brought a new face to the company team in 2023 with Marketing Executive Chelssie Oates, who brings a decade of professional photography work as well several years of administrative experience.

As CEO of Owyhee Produce, Shay Myers wears several hats, including those associated with automation upgrades and artificial intelligence as well as one for maintaining communication among the large and growing family roster at the operation.

A third-generation offspring of Owyhee Produce founder, the late Owen Froerer, Myers works with his grandmother, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, by-marriage relatives and a close-knit staff to nurture and grow the farm and packing/shipping company.