LG Herndon Jr. Farms doubles down on organics
LG Herndon Jr. Farms doubles down on organics
LG Herndon Jr. Farms of Lyons, GA, is always a major player in the Vidalia onion deal — now the company is making moves to be a first-choice provider of organic Vidalias and other items from its product line.
“We doubled our acres on organics. I cleaned up about 500 acres of pine trees and these farms are just going to be designated for organic stuff,” said Bo Herndon. “Our organic onions look really good and I’m real proud of them at this date. Organic just continues to grow and a lot of people want it and you’ve got to grow what people want. But it is hard to grow organics, it is hard. But my granddaddy always told me if everybody could do it, everybody would be doing it. It’s got to be hard or everybody would be doing it.”
“We went from 18 acres of organics to 55 this year — a lot of these buyers want a portion of their produce department to have organic — you’ve got the guys who specialize in it like Whole Foods and Trader Joes and Fresh Market, but the other guys want to have that organic option too. They want a few pallets of organic,” said Marketing Manager John Williams.
When it comes to the conventional crop, Herndon planted a little later than other growers and thus missed the early season weather-related problems that resulted in stand loss for most.
“We may be down 20 percent overall in the industry, but our crop’s at 92 to 93 percent. We’ve got a real good crop,” Herndon said. “There are a lot of farmers with a lot of onions, but there are a lot that lost some stands. It was a little warm during planting — we had 80 degree temperatures in December and that’s the worst thing you can have with an onion, it puts on too much top. We were a little late with our planting so that helped us not develop a big top.”
To help move the crop, Herndon is bringing a new wood-grain floor bin to the market “that looks really sharp,” Williams said. “We’ve got people excited about using those this year in stores.”
