Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Gary Black will meet again with the Vidalia advisory panel and onion growers later this week to share the results of his investigation into recent possible irregularities at Stanley Farms in Vidalia, GA. Meanwhile, Brian Stanley, the company sales manager, pledged “100 percent transparency” in the company’s efforts to clear the air.

“We’re going to provide 100 percent transparency,” Stanley told The Produce News May 12. “We’ve participated in scheduled and unscheduled inspections over the last few weeks, now we just have to show them all of the documentation so they can see what has transpired. The Stanleys never want to hurt the heritage of the Vidalia onion — that’s the main thing we’ve got to get out there. We’re ready to get all of this behind us. We’re just going to open everything to the [Georgia] Department of Agriculture and see what’s going on.”

Black and officials from the Federal-State Inspection Service met May 7 with Vidalia onion growers to hear allegations from growers that Stanley Farms recently processed as many as 400 truckloads of conventional yellow Florida onions at the same facility where it processes Vidalias without separating the two as required by law, an infraction that carries a fine of $5,000 per incident up to $20,000.

Growers at the meeting also raised allegations that Stanley may have packed those yellow onions as Vidalias. According to statute 2-13-134 of the Vidalia Onion act of 1986, misrepresenting other onions as Vidalias is a felony carrying potential punitive measures consisting of a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000 or by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than three years, or both.

“That’s what hurts us, is for anybody to think we would do anything to hurt the Vidalia image,” Stanley said. “It’s a tough situation and that’s why we’re ready to get all the information out there and let them look at it and be transparent with it. They’ll see that we’d never in any way want to hurt Vidalia’s heritage. We want to get it behind us as quickly as possible. Whenever the department looks through all this, hopefully we can get it behind us very rapidly so we can move on. We’ve just got to get that information to the right people, then we can talk about it soon.”

As of May 11, state officials were still onsite at Stanley Farms, where they had been since 10 p.m. May 7 when the investigation began following the advisory panel meeting.

Julie McPeake, director of communications for the department of agriculture, confirmed May 11 that the investigation was ongoing and said there was no timetable for its conclusion.

However, one grower who was considering initiating a class-action lawsuit told The Produce News May 11 that he has decided to wait for the commissioner’s investigation to conclude before taking any action.

“He asked us to give him a few more days to finish his investigation,” said the grower, who requested anonymity. “He has already taken the initial action we were hoping for, so we will wait for the results of the investigation, which he told us will come one day this week.”

At issue is the ferociously defended Vidalia trademark. Over two decades ago Vidalia growers were granted a federal marketing order protecting their crop from fraud. Stringent rules apply to the packaging and labeling of Vidalia onions, including prohibitions against comingling Vidalias with other onions in a processing facility or misrepresenting any other onion as a Vidalia.