Good summer at the Vineland Produce Auction heading into the fall
The Vineland Produce Auction has seen excellent quality produce and strong volume all summer, and will soon look to New Jersey’s fall produce season, according to the auction’s Carol DeFoor.
“The summer has gone well,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of volume, and quality is excellent. We had a drier summer, so there were no issues with quality.”
Peppers and hard squashes have been good movers, she noted. “All the stuff is beautiful, absolutely gorgeous.”
The only issue “is that even with the somewhat higher prices for produce, the farmers’ expenses have gone up at a minimum of 40 percent for packaging and supplies,” she said. “We won’t know until the end of the year once everything is settled for some of these guys. The costs that these farmers are having, it’s scary. The expenses that they are going through are astronomical.”
But the growers “are gearing up for the fall crops,” such as lettuces and cabbages, she said. “All the greens, the lettuces, the parsleys, the cilantro, the dill, all that stuff will start heavy again as the cooler weather comes in. The heat broke today, so we’re looking very much forward.”
With fall approaching, “We’re well stocked on supplies that the growers need or the buyers need,” she said. “We have the cooling, the ice, everything that they could possibly need. We’re ready to go full force this fall, and always prepping for the next year.”
Photo: Carol DeFoor, Maria Castellari, Lauren Richert, Debbie Forcinito and Gloria Schoppel of the Vineland Produce Auction.
Gordon Hochberg
About Gordon M. Hochberg | 
Gordon M. Hochberg was born in New York City, and grew up in Westchester County, NY. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in history from Lafayette College in 1973.
He started his career at The Produce News in the late 1970s, and has been with the publication ever since.
He served on the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Agricultural Society from 2012 to 2018. He currently serves on the Southeast Produce Council’s Board of Governors.
He enjoys music, theater and reading (American and ancient history are his favorites). And he’s been a lifelong fan of the New York Yankees since attending his first game in the late 1950s. He and his wife, Kathi, have been married since 1974.
