Delbert Bland is excited, and the owner of Bland Farms LLC in Glennville, GA, has good reason to be: He has a great stand of Vidalia onions coming in and the product line of subsidiary Vidalia Brands has new entries that are finding homes in supermarkets everywhere.

But Bland is still cautious.

“We’re really excited about this crop, but that’s understanding last year at this time we were pretty excited about the crop and had cold wet weather just before harvest that caused some problems,” Bland said in mid-March. “But if we continue with the weather we’re having and the way things are looking we’ll stay very excited. We feel like we’ve got a good crop of onions, we don’t see anything to hold us back right now. If we get good warm weather we feel like our crop is well on the way to being as good as we’ve had in several years and it’s going to be very promotable.”

Two years ago, the Vidalia deal was slowed by an outbreak of downy mildew. Last year, seed stem caused a significant portion of the crop to bolt in the opening week of the deal; a second-half comeback actually evened out production to normal standards but wreaked havoc on the market.

“I think the Vidalia industry itself made a mistake by crying wolf last year on seed stem and different things when it was not for real, not what people were saying. Yeah we really had a problem but in the end there was enough volume to overcome that,” Bland said. “Now people don’t understand that with all the adverse conditions we’ve had this winter — rain and cold — these onions are coming out of it and look real good. We feel like it will be very promotable and we’re very optimistic right now.”

Despite a fabled history and the fact that his company is one of the world’s largest growers and suppliers of sweet onions, Bland knows he cannot rest on his laurels.

“Like any other business, you earn your stripes every day. It matters what you did yesterday but what really matters is what you do going forward, and that’s what we’re trying to keep doing,” he said. “In reality I think it’s important that the industry as a whole understands and the public understands that we have a good crop of Vidalia onions coming on, and we’re going to have a lot of support this year that we normally wouldn’t have from the regular onion market.

“Typically the regular onion market doesn’t affect the Vidalia deal but this year it is because the onion supplies have been short on sweet onions as well as Western onions — any time you look in the paper and see western onions $20 or more on the West Coast — and you can add $6 to any bag to get to the East Coast — the support the Vidalia deal will have this year that we typically wouldn’t have is just in the regular onion category. People have to consume so many in restaurants and foodservice and we will have that business in addition to the regular Vidalia business and that will give us a good support base. The way it looks at this point it will prop up that market. But one thing in this business, if you don’t like what’s happening, like weather, wait five minutes. But right now it’s got the makings of a pretty good looking deal.”

Meanwhile the Vidalia Brands subsidiary, which produces condiments, dressings, toppings, dips and snacks with the world’s favorite onion, is booming. Crunchy Vidalia Onion Straws have become a huge hit in and out of the produce department. Now a new pair of potato chips — Vidalia onion dusted and Vidalia-based barbecue — introduced at the Southeast Produce Council’s Southern Exposure trade show looks like the next breakout hit.

“Those are going to be the ticket, people are crazy about those things,” Bland said.