DELTA, CO — The recent change of ownership at Hi-Quality Packing and its marketing arm, United Marketing Exchange, brings with it an expanded direction, according to company President Joe Davis and Chief Executive Officer-Chief Operating Officer Mike Gibson.

Texas businessman and physician Davis took ownership in early June, and though his official title is president, he told The Produce News, “I’m the vice president in charge of hello.” Gibson, who had served as sales manager of UME, and Karen Anderson, who was office manager and is now comptroller, both worked with Hi-Quality/UME owner Harold Broughton for more than two decades. Broughton, a fourth-generation, lifetime fruit grower, died April 29 at age 81.

Joe Davis, new president of Hi-Quality Packing/United Marketing Exchange and Laughing Goat Farmer's Market in Delta, CO, with Comptroller Karen Anderson and Chief Executive Officer-Chief Operating Officer Mike Gibson.While Hi-Quality/UME is now packing and marketing Western Slope fruit and some vegetables as it has since the late 1960s, plans are to expand the operation into a vertically integrated food producer and retail outlet, with Laughing Goat Farmer’s Market stores planned for the region and the state.

“I want to build a food company,” Davis said on June 24. “This area has enormous ag potential, and we hope to see small-time farmers make a good living at it.”

Davis said the decline of small farmers “puts food production into too few hands.”

He said, “Unless kids who study agriculture inherit land, they often end up working for big ag,” and he added that “people want to farm but don’t have the ability to market.”

To that end, Laughing Goat Farmer’s Market will open its second store in Delta later this season. The flagship store is in the Houston area, Gibson said.

The majority of items to be carried in the Colorado stores will be produced regionally and locally, providing job assurance for workers who are currently struggling in the faltering economy.

“And we will continue to handle fruit as we always have,” Gibson said, noting that cherries from Broughton Orchards were being packed and shipped that week.

“We started cherries on June 19, and we have only about a two-week window this year,” Gibson said. “It’s been light volume due to a frost in April.”

Peaches were set to start the second week of July and run through Sept. 10, he said, noting that Western Slope orchards and fields have good water this year. Gibson said UME continues to work with a group of 20-30 peach growers.

The company also packs and ships pears, mostly Bartletts, with lesser volumes of Green Anjous and Boscs.

A new field man was checking apple orchards on June 24, and Gibson said they would accumulate estimates on harvest and volumes. UME works with 10 to 15 growers and ships Galas, Jonathans, Goldens, Reds, Fujis, Grannies, Romes and a limited amount of Honeycrisp.

As for Laughing Goat sales, Gibson said the new store will open in late season, but he said the retail portion of Hi-Quality will be in operation as usual in late July.