How does one pronounce the word “Vidalia”? Is it Vy-dayl-yah? Vi-dahl-ya? Vi-day-lia? That’s a question the team at Shuman Produce in Reidsville, GA, wanted answered as they were preparing for the season that’s just around the corner.

Along the way to solving that mystery (the answer is that there is no right answer) they came across many other pronunciation quirks particular to the Southeastern United States and soon realized that most of the rest of the world does not know how to speak Southern.

The solution is a new consumer-facing website, howtospeaksouthern.com, that has fun with Southern accents while sharing the unique story of the families that grow and ship Shumans “RealSweet” Vidalias.

“We’re a family of farmers, a collection of mid-sized family farms that for 20 years have been going to battle together, going to market together, under one banner, the ‘RealSweet’ brand,” said John Shuman. “Together we can do more than any of us could on our own. We’ve been partners since the mid-1990s, we grew up in the Vidalia onion deal, love it, have a passion for it and have been part of it our whole lives. We’re organized, we’re efficient and we represent a very large percentage of the Vidalia sweet onion industry as a group. Together we can access markets and make things happen.”

That group includes two recent winners of the Vidalia Onion Committee’s annual Farm of the Year award, McClain Farms (2015) and Sikes Farms (2013). Together they control 2,220 total acres of Vidalia onions, with storage capacity for 750,000 40-pound units, the capability to dry 150,000 units daily and ship 38,000 units every single day.

“We’ve been through it all,” Shuman said. “We’ve been through some very tough times and some very good times and what we’ve learned is we can depend on each other, and that’s important.”

The growers all market under the “RealSweet” banner. In addition to the website, howtospeaksouthern.com, that marketing presence also includes a newly revamped consumer-facing website that will go live later this month and new retail bins designed to drive consumer purchasing through cross-merchandising with other produce items and meats.

And together, the Shuman family of farms has produced what is shaping up as a tremendous 2015 crop.

“It looks so good we’re sleeping with one eye open,” Shuman said.

“We will remain cautious, but the way things are shaping up I think Georgia’s in a position to bring some much-needed relief to the sweet onion market, which has been depressed for the last eight-to-10 months,” he said. “It can turn on a dime and it can change overnight, that’s one thing I’ve learned. But right now it seems the market is climbing, supplies are very tight out of Mexico, and if nothing changes it looks like Georgia’s in a position to take advantage of some of this with a very promising crop on the way.”