Eastern Shore on target for June production

The Eastern Shore is loosely defined as the Delmarva Peninsula encompassing a handful of counties in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, separated from the mainland to the west by the Chesapeake Bay, and washed by the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.

It’s fresh produce production fits nicely in the puzzle that provides retailers and foodservice operators, especially those along the Eastern Seaboard, with a steady array of locally-grown potatoes, vegetables and other fresh fruits and vegetables from spring to fall. This season, production is expected to begin in early June and, depending upon the commodity, last through September.

David Hickman, president of Horntown, VA-based Dublin Farms, said the company’s fresh potato production will start before the end of June. In late May, he said it appeared that the start date would fall between June 22 and June 26. He noted that it is a good-looking crop with overall volume similar to the 2022 season.

He added that Virginia potatoes have a good niche in the marketplace filling the gap after Florida’s fresh crop potatoes are dug in the spring and before the more northern production areas start producing in late summer early fall. Dublin will be shipping fresh potatoes to its customers stretching from Florida to Canada until late in the summer.  Hickman said the potato market has been very good all year and he anticipates that will continue to be the case for the entirety of the Eastern Shore’s marketing window.

Agreeing with that viewpoint was Ken Gad, president of Cambridge Farms. While that potato distributor is based in South Easton, MA, it has long partnered with potato growers from the Southeast to the Northeast, including along the Eastern Shore. He said Florida growers had a good crop and good market, which bodes well for the rest of the East Coast potato community. “Whatever happens in Florida tends to happen up the coast as the potato harvest moves through North Carolina, the Eastern Shore and up to the Northeast and on into Canada,” he said. “Hastings (Florida potato district) had good quality yields and good returns and the other areas should follow suit. We are expecting good volume and good returns from North Carolina and from Virginia after that.”

Gad expects to start selling Virginia potatoes by mid-June, and expects good demand and strong FOB prices on reds, white and yellows with a great size profile. In fact, Gad was willing to predict that next year’s potato crop will also feature a good market at least through the summer of 2024. He reasoned that the short supplies of four years ago are still impacting seed potato production, meaning the supply and demand curve has been favorable for growers and it will remain so, in his opinion, at least until the storage crops from Idaho, Washington and Wisconsin and the other top producing potato states are in the sheds in the fall of next year.

Eastern Shore vegetable producers are also looking forward to a good season. Carol Traegler of Papen Farms in Dover, DE, said the spring has produced great growing weather, which has seen the crops mature perfectly. Papen produces sweet corn, green beans and cabbage. The company is expecting those three crops to produce on a fairly normal schedule this season, providing them with a solid sales list from early June through its fall crop of green beans. Sweet corn is the company’s top volume commodity and it appears to be right on target for its typical post-Fourth of July harvest, which will last about two months.

Traegler and Janet Meyer, both of who are part of the Papen Family and owners of the company, are expecting a solid market this season, especially for its early green bean crop, which is expected to get going around June 20. The pair noted that the green bean market has been in a demand-exceeds-supply situation with very high prices for much of the spring. They are prepared to ship that crop further west to help fill the pipeline if the need arises.