Though deal is year-round, Shuman looks forward to Vidalia season
Though deal is year-round, Shuman looks forward to Vidalia season
When John Shuman and his brothers, Mark and Ben, were growing up, they could count on being busy six months of the year helping their dad Buck with his Vidalia onion crop. These days, it is always onion season at Shuman Produce Inc. of Reidsville, GA, which has grown into one of the largest providers of sweet onions in the world.
Though Shuman now grows and ships onions from around the Western Hemisphere, Vidalia is still the crown jewel of the operation and this time of year is always special.
Said John Shuman, “It’s like a baseball player anticipating spring training, just the sights and the sounds and the smells. I can tell you being in the business and growing up in it and being around it my whole life, you absolutely love to see the azaleas bloom in south Georgia in the spring and the Masters golf tournament come around because those are triggers that say the onion season’s on the way, it’s time to tighten your belt and prepare yourself for some pretty long hours and some emotional ups and downs and for the next eight to 12 weeks there’s going to be a lot happening fast.”
And though the start of the 2014 deal will be delayed by cool weather, “once it starts you get that onion smell ingrained in your hands and it won’t wash off because you’re handling so many to get the season started — it’s like smelling the grass as a baseball field in the spring,” Shuman said. “It’s a very special time for me and my family and my two brothers and even my dad still comes around to check on everything and touch base. We’ve been a part of this industry for so long, it’s an exciting time for sure. We look forward to shedding the winter coat and the arrival of spring.”
Tight supplies elsewhere due to poor weather in Mexico and Texas and lack of volume in the Northwest have the Vidalia deal set up for a solid market, and the crop is expected to meet demand once it arrives and ramps up.
“It is way too early, particularly with the weather like it is here as well as in Texas and Mexico, to make any projections about the size of these onions,” Shuman said. “We’re a solid six to seven weeks away from ploughing into the latter two-thirds of the crop, and that’s just way too much time to be making any concrete plans in the sweet onion world. There are just too many unknown variables.”
After a poor start in 2013, Shuman reminds, “the crop turned around and the second half was the best I’ve seen in 20 years in terms of yield, production and bags per acre. Patience would be very prudent right now.”
