George Wooten, president of Wayne E. Bailey, headquartered in Chadbourn, NC, told The Produce News that the company, a leading producer of sweet potatoes, will be exhibiting at the PMA Foodservice Conference & Expo in Monterey, CA, on July 25-27. The company will be represented by Ronnie Mercer, a company sales manager.

“Ronnie will be reiterating to our customers and prospective customers about the availability of the sweet potato sizes that we offer,” said Wooten. “Our selection of sizes will be on display for viewing. This is an important factor within the foodservice sector in that it enables operators to have consistency in their plate portions.”

Wayne E. Bailey is continually making upgrades and improvements to its facilities, and to enhance the consistency it provides to its customers it purchased and installed a new check weigher this past spring.

Wooten noted that the company also has highly positive feelings about its sweet potato fingerlings for the foodservice sector.

“We recently featured the fingerlings at a restaurant convention and we received an outstanding response,” he said. “These too will be available for viewing at the PMA Foodservice expo, and we will be speaking to distributors about this special item.”

He pointed out that Wayne E. Bailey has about a 65 percent larger foodservice business than any other sweet potato producer and so it keeps its attention aimed strongly at the category. It ships to foodservice operators and distributors across North America, and its customers include the entire range of users including high-end white tablecloth establishments, family-style chains, quick-serve and fast food chains.

“We’re currently working with a major fast food chain that we hope to begin with in the fall for baked sweet potatoes,” Wooten added. “The more educated consumers become about the outstanding health benefits of sweet potatoes the more they order them in restaurants of all levels. That translates into operators wanting to offer them in more ways than just fried.”

Wooten also announced that Andy Pope has been hired as Wayne E. Bailey’s new chief operating officer. He “rejoined” the company in February.

“Andy worked for us about seven years ago for about three years,” said Wooten. “He went in a different direction for a while, but has now rejoined us. He is highly analytical at cost cutting, and now we have him back with an additional seven years of experience under his belt.”

He also noted that the company is experiencing an uptick in foodservice business that seems to be in flow with the economic recovery, saying, “Demand and movement continues to grow, but the problem we are faced with this year is that the overall sweet potato production is down by between 20 and 30 percent. We’re a little too far out for a sound prediction on the 2014 harvest, but we’re sure hoping that we’ll have a great crop that can meet the ever growing demand for sweet potatoes.”

Wooten is always ready to talk about his ever-growing close-knit family. His son, Adam, and daughter-in-law Megan, welcomed their second child into the world earlier this year.

“I’m one proud grandpa,” said Wooten, “and I’m always up for promoting those grandchildren.”