“We have a buyer stationed at the Vineland Auction during New Jersey’s production season,” said Mike Maxwell, president of Philadelphia-based Procacci Bros. “We purchase just about every product from every grower who comes through the auction house. New Jersey’s season is a very important part of Procacci’s locally grown program.”

The company’s Santa Sweets subsidiary is located in Cedarville, NJ. Maxwell said it is 1,600 acres, making it one of the larger tomato growers in the state.

Procacci Bros. corporate and subsidiary structure extends far and wide. Its GS Distributing arm handles direct store deliveries from Baltimore to Portland, ME, and west to Pittsburgh. This division services foodservice operations, small independent retailers and cooperative chains with 10 to 30 stores.

Procacci Bros.’ division is a wholesaler, repacker, importer and distributor that services mostly large scale clients, such as major chain retailers and chain foodservice operations. Santa Sweets is the tomato growing operation which follows seasonal growing regions to supply its customers with “Santa Sweets,” “Ugly Ripe” and other proprietary tomatoes.

Procacci Bros. has a presence on the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market, but another arm of the company, Garden State Farms, also occupies space on the PWPM.

Rick Feighery, vice president of sales for Procacci Bros. said that the company’s “Santa Sweets” and “UglyRipe” tomato plant program, which launched earlier this year, is doing extremely well.

“Procacci got into floral over four years ago, and it’s been growing steadily since,” said Feighery. “The plants are a natural for cross merchandising between produce and floral departments.”

“Every retail store has its own layout, which dictates where they put the plants. Some are in the floral areas and some are displayed on the pavement. Farmers markets are doing an outstanding job with the plants,” he added.

Procacci Bros. put a lot of thought into the seasonal growing zone aspect of selling tomato plants. The plants are put in the greenhouse in six individual week-blocks in order to stay in tune with growing zones. Toward late May, the placement was beginning in stores in New England, where home gardeners were just beginning to plant.

The plants are also on Procacci Bros.’ website, along with its extensive gift basket line where consumers can order direct. Feighery noted that Mother’s Day is one of the busiest times for the gift basket program.

Maxwell said that the company is highly supportive of all eastern growing regions. It has a large local program with stone fruit growers in Pennsylvania and other eastern states. And it buys from producers in Long Island, NY.

“The East Coast local vegetable programs are extremely important to us,” Maxwell said. “We also deal with Delaware and Maryland. The quality of our local produce is exceptional, and the freight advantage is enormous. Today it costs $9,000 to bring a truck in from California, and $300 to bring one in from an eastern state. Throw 1,000 pieces on a truck and you’ll see the value immediately.”

“Retailers today are after value, fresh and quality goods,” he continued. “And East Coast growers are doing one heck of a job producing for them.”

Kevin Delaney, director of marketing, explained that in 2010 the company installed two megawatt solar energy fields in its Santa Sweet operation in New Jersey.

“We are producing all of our energy to power our packing facility and our coolers by our own solar energy system, called Net Metering,” he said. “On long, very sunny summer days our panels produce more energy than we need, and so our meter goes backwards as we send energy back to the grid. On cold, short winter days we’re pulling energy back from the grid. The idea is to balance out at the end of the year so that we are producing all of our own energy.”