Shuman Produce Inc. of Reidsville, GA, has found its “sweet spot.”

That could refer to the oncoming crop of famous Vidalia onions that’s right around the corner, the company’s “RealSweet” brand, or the inaugural Sweetest Vidalia Onion Award Shuman recently received from the University of Georgia for the sweetest onion sample submitted for testing during the 2015 season.

John Shuman of Shuman Produce in Reidsville, GA, received the inaugural University of Georgia Sweetest Vidalia Onion Award from the UGA Extension Service at the annual Vidalia Awards Banquet on Feb. 6. Photo by John Houy.But in this case, John Shuman is talking about the annual Vidalia crop, which is shaping up well and will come in somewhere between 2,200-2,300 acres — “very similar to what we had last year,” he said. “That seems to be our sweet spot, no pun intended. That seems to work very well with the infrastructure we’ve got and grading capacity and storage capacity. We’re a full-line vertically integrated Vidalia onion farm company, so we’re there from start to finish and have the infrastructure to provide our customers with good service.”

Shuman’s 2016 crop, like the rest of the Vidalia deal, overcame rough weather at the start and promises a nice stand.

“The onions are coming back and rebounding, they look good, we’ve had some really good weather the past couple of weeks and it’s been very helpful,” Shuman said.

Shuman’s organic deal will also be similar to last year’s. Most growers lost a majority of the 2015 organic crop to a freeze, but “we were a little more fortunate than the rest of the industry for some reason and were able to have a pretty good year,” he said. “It’s a very important part of our program — organics continue to grow and become more popular.”

But Shuman also appreciates the fact that an onion bearing the label “RealSweet” won the first-ever honors for the area’s sweetest onion.

“The ‘RealSweet’ brand paid off in big a way this year,” he said. “The University of Georgia is putting a lot of research and development behind the Vidalia sweet onion, it’s one of the key vegetables in our state and they’re very interested in helping us promote it and put out the best product we possibly can, and that’s what this is about. We’re very pleased and happy and honored to receive this award for 2015.”

And while Shuman is proud to have been recognized by UGA for its efforts, he is equally proud of his year-round program, with high-quality granex sweet onions from Mexico, Texas and chiefly Peru rounding out the deal.

“We consider ourselves very blessed to have seen our company grow from a seasonal Vidalia onion farming operation into a year-round international program over the last three decades,” Shuman said. “We’re a 365-day, 52-week onion supplier. We’ve been in this business for a long time, we’re long-term invested.”