“We did go through a hurricane of course, but we were one of the more fortunate people down there; a lot of people got completely obliterated,” said Rick McCranie, marketing manager for the company. “We were lucky. We ended up harvesting a huge part of our crop and the prices were just through the roof. We did have some damage, but our farms were spread around, so only one farm really had bad damage, and they were able to salvage a lot of that.”
The eggplant was lost but pepper, squash, cabbage and specialty peppers came through the storm well.
“For our spring deal, we’re not really doing anything different as far as our acreage goes,” McCranie said. “We’re going to stick to what we usually do, though we did increase a few of the specialty peppers, but not by large amounts. That deal has been really good for us since we got into the different varieties of chili peppers. We just put out a really good pack and stay old-school.”
Over his career, McCranie was a buyer for a chain store and has been in sales for years, but this is the first time in his life that he’s seen prices of bell peppers reach $44, and he’s interested to see what happens in the segment going forward.
Because of snow in Georgia this year, the cabbage crops are going to be a little late, pushed back about two weeks. And the squash deal was pushed back to keep it on the same timeline as some of its other items to make it easier for transportation and marketing.
“The cabbage market should be decent,” McCranie said. “It seems like there’s quite the demand right now. I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries as Florida seems to be winding down.”
Jake Hart has settled into his job nicely as operations manager for the packing facility and the family-run business continues to find success.
“One of the Hart nephews grows a little cabbage for us and one of Scott’s good friends grows some cabbage for us, so we have three cabbage growers,” McCranie said. “All the mixed vegetables are just from Hart Farms.”
