Farm Fresh Produce is touting its cabbage program this season, especially the company's Napa production, which is in full swing.

"We are pretty excited about our North Carolina Napa cabbage program this year," Steven Ceccarelli, co-owner with his wife, Bethany, of Farm Fresh Produce in Faison, NC, told The Produce News May 3. "We have between 60 and 70 acres of Napa coming on from Clinton and Mount Olive that will start on May 6 or 7."Steven Ceccarelli, owner of Farm Fresh Produce, shows off the company’s new cabbage box a field of Napa cabbage that is ready for harvest.

Farm Fresh Produce has run its North Carolina Napa cabbage program for about five years, and Mr. Ceccarelli said that the demand continues to grow.

"Freight cost is a major factor with any commodity, including cabbage," said Mr. Ceccarelli. "That is putting added demand on our crop because it's so expensive to truck [the item] from California or Texas. That gives us a huge advantage on the Eastern Seaboard. We can get a truck from Florida to Maine a lot faster and cheaper than from those areas."

Regular green and Flathead cabbages kick off at Farm Fresh Produce soon after Napa starts. The company produces 25-30 acres of the Flathead variety, which Mr. Ceccarelli said is a little "snappier" than other cabbages. Squash starts by the end of the following week, around May 13, followed by sweet bell peppers, which are scheduled to start a day later. The company produces about 50 acres of bell peppers, which run through the end of June.

Mr. Ceccarelli said that everyone in the produce industry knows what a stock cabbage box looks like, but the company wanted its program to stand out, and so it is preparing to launch its newly designed cabbage box featuring the "Farm Fresh" label.

"Because our cabbage program is so strong and our growers do such a great job, we wanted the box to be recognizable," he said. "It is just now being introduced and we'll be packing this year's crop in it. The box has traceability-coded stickers on it, which is an added perk to having our own box. The 'Farm Fresh' label is synonymous with high quality."

Farm Fresh Produce also has a strong sweet potato program, and it does a major export business to Europe. This year the company had two booths at the Fruit Logistica trade show in Berlin in February.

"In addition to being in the sweet potato pavilion, we wanted to stand on our own," said Mr. Ceccarelli. "It's one thing to put together a booth for a trade show in your own country, but it's a completely different thing to do it from the other side of the ocean. But it was really worth our efforts.

"Because the show is in Germany, and we know how Germans love their beer, we handed out samplings of 'Carver,' sweet potato-based beer that is made by Fullsteam Brewery, a microbrewery in Durham, North Carolina," he continued. "We handed out 70 cases of the large bottles."

Mr. Ceccarelli said that he knew if the beer was too sweet that expo visitors would not like it, but people loved it and it turned out to be a great promotional tool, drawing a lot of press coverage.

"The German ambassador came to our booth and took photos with us," he added. "Some of our European customers want us to [feature] the beer on the containers with sweet potatoes."

Farm Fresh Produce moved into its new office in Faison this past January. Mr. Ceccarelli said that the staff is now settled into it nicely. He added that the company is looking to hire someone in an accounting position as well as new sales representatives.

"We just completed installation of a new refrigeration unit where we pack and ship Napa cabbage so we can cool it down very fast," he said. "Doing so assures that the cabbage is very fresh and high-quality. We now offer Napa in the spring and again in the fall, but our goal is to offer it year round."

The company is preparing to switch to new accounting software to help increase its efficiencies.

"It's never a good time to switch an accounting program, but it will help to streamline our entire functions," said Mr. Ceccarelli. "These programs are costly, but in the long run it will streamline all of our functions."