BENSON, NC — The 2014 North Carolina sweet potato harvest was wrapping up in early November — 86 percent complete, according to the North Carolina Agribusiness Council — and back to normal proportions and of high quality, according to the head of the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission and several growers.

Sue Johnson-Langdon, executive director of the commission, said the harvest will mark a return to normal yields after a rain-damaged 2013 shortfall caused many growers to run out of cured 2013 sweet potatoes and ship uncured or “green” potatoes in the early harvest weeks.Workers harvesting sweet potatoes in a field near Benson, NC, sit on their buckets while waiting for another row of potatoes to be dug up by a tractor. Many North Carolina sweet potato growers also grow tobacco and move from harvesting tobacco to sweet potatoes. “A later tobacco season this year gave us a narrow window of 70-80 days to get the sweet potato crop harvested,” she observed.

Johnson-Langdon said Thanksgiving has traditionally been the peak season for consumer demand, but two new North Carolina plants making cut sweet potato fries for fast-food chains, increased foodservice use, along with steady growth of 20 percent a year in exports, are fueling year-round demand.   

The commission has launched a new recipe booklet, “52 Ways to Love Sweet Potatoes,” to spur year-round use of sweet potatoes. The fold-out brochure offers a recipe for every week of the year and is available to supermarket chains in bulk, Johnson-Langdon said. She also distributes point-of-sale posters with tear-off recipe slips for Red Eye Sweet Potato Soup and Mini-Sweet Potato Chicken Flat Bread Pizzas.

Growers weighed in with satisfaction at the harvest, though final totals are not yet in. The harvest at Burch Farms in Faison, NC, was delayed a week to 10 days due to rain, according to owner Jimmy Burch Sr., who worked his cell phone and landline phone from the office command post in a recliner chair, receiving reports and relaying instructions. Like many growers, Burch ran short of stored potatoes from the 2013 crop.

“We shipped green sweet potatoes from the 2014 crop for about three weeks until we could cure the crop,” Burch recounted.  He noted that Burch Farms has added storage space for 100,000 more bushels of sweet potatoes in order not to get caught short in the years ahead. “Sweet potatoes have moved to year-round sales in recent years,” he added, observing that retail sales have held level while food-service and fast-food sales have increased in recent years. Prices are up slightly from last year, he said.

Taking the long view, not unusual for a grower whose family came to this country in 1760, Burch will grow asparagus on the East Coast in 2014, a three-year test to see if there is a market for it here. Organic sweet potatoes are also seeing an upswing in demand, he said. His firm joined with several other growers to form Yamco, which makes sweet potato puree used in vodka, beer, jams, pastry mixes, and soon, whiskey. “It took five years of losses, but this year Yamco started to make money. It takes time,” Burch said.

Michael Wood, operations manager at J. Roland Wood Farms, here, said his harvest was wrapping up with high quality and good yields, but prices were down slightly from last year. Wood grows about 1,000 acres of sweet potatoes, many sold to become sweet potato fries. "The sweet potato french fries market over the last few years has been good. Now it's leveling off," he told The Produce News.

Wood Farms is a family-owned business that sells sweet potatoes year-round, mainly east of the Mississippi River. Its varieties include Hernandez and Covington, shipped in 40-pound boxes.

Godwin Produce Co. in nearby Dunn, NC, predominately a shipper to retail chains along the East Coast, ended its harvest Nov. 7 under the supervision of co-owner David Godwin, who said volume was good and quality was high. Godwin also has seen steady sales growth to the foodservice industry. His company also sells sweet potatoes to canning companies. Godwin grows sweet potatoes in four Tar Heel counties, which are stored and packed in Dunn.

Over the years, Godwin has provided truckloads of un-marketable, yet edible, nutritious sweet potatoes to Feed the Children and the Society of St. Andrews.