“The crop this year is much better than last year’s,” George Wooten, president of Wayne E. Bailey, headquartered in Chadbourn, NC, told The Produce News on Aug. 20. “Thankfully we started packing the second week of August, and although we aren’t yet in full swing, we’re doing our best to get customers what they want.”

He added that the company expected to be shipping stored sweet potatoes the week of Aug. 18, and anticipating shipping stored cured product by Sept. 15-20.

George Wooten, president, and Jason Malek, bagger technician for Wayne E. Bailey, pictured with the new check bagger installed at the company's facility in the spring.In is common knowledge that last year’s crop was down nationwide, but Wooten said that he takes the condition of his crop personally, so he found it to be a pretty depressing year.

“This past year was a struggle for us,” he said. “We ran out of sweet potatoes for the first time since 1989. We started running real low in early July, and ran out completely [around] August 10. We usually go through to the next harvest with ample supplies of cured product.

“This year’s crop is putting the headaches of the 2013 crop behind us,” Wooten continued. “And we learned a lot from the experience from the past year that will help prevent us from running out again.”

Wooten was referring to using better strategies in the future that would better control a shorter crop so that supplies last through to the next crop. Adding to the shortages the company suffered with in the past year was that some of its growing partners had complete crop disasters.

“Typically we have a very good way of forecasting a crop, but we weren’t able to forecast the problems that our growing partners had,” he pointed out. “We lost 200,000 bushels, which was a major loss.”

Leaving the last year behind him is the best current news. This year Wayne E. Bailey has increased its crop by 15 percent of normal, and it was able to get into the fields better than in 2013.

“We had a normal set season this year,” he added. “It’s not been perfect weather, but it’s been very good. There have been a few showers giving us a little excess rain recently, but nothing that has seriously hampered the crop.”

Wooten also believes that this year’s better crop will enable the company to bring good opportunities to fruition that had to sit on the research and development table during the past year. But other new launches have proven successful for the company.

“Our steamer bag, which we’ve been working on for the past three and a half years, has gotten so much traction that our competitors are beginning to offer them,” he said. “And we are launching a bilingual bag for Canada that will be printed in both French and English. We feel certain that this will be a big success. Our work on our fingerling sweet potato program has also progressed and will be released later this fall. We expect this program to be huge. In essence, we’re taking a very small sweet potato and making it huge.”

Wayne E. Bailey is also gaining ground on its bagging program. Wooten explained that consumers are finally buying bigger units because sweet potatoes have become such an integral part of their diets.

“Business is amazingly good, and it’s fabulous to be a part of it,” he said. “The avocado business, as one example, is a great one to be in today because the demand is so strong. That’s just about the way we feel in the sweet potato business.”

Wayne E. Bailey and the entire Wooten familycontinues in its dedication to the Winter Jam as sponsors of the concert tours.

“Numerous concerts are scheduled across the country for the remainder of 2014, and we expect a strong concert series for 2015,” said Wooten. “We are very proud to be a part of Winter Jam, and I get a lot of great compliments from people about it.”