Russo Farms is a trusted grower, buyer and shipper of fresh produce with more than 100 years of history. It also owns and operates trucks for delivery, and ships via direct grower relationships in New Jersey.

“Things have been very busy,” said Thomas Russo Jr., president of the Vineland, NJ-based company. “We’re looking forward to another Jersey season. We got started a little earlier than usual; the weather was very favorable in that regard.”

Russo Farms operates on approximately 350 acres of farmland and deals in 50 categories of vegetables. Among its biggest items are sweet corn, peppers, squash, cucumbers, pickles and hot peppers.

“There’s a lot of product everywhere in the country so demand hasn’t been great, but that’s going to start drying up pretty soon,” Russo said. “The good thing is we finally had a cold winter, which we needed after four warm winters, and you get a lot of disease from that. A typical winter is better for a lot of things. We’re going to have a lot of product to sell.”

In 2025, Russo Farms has been taking advantage of recent modernization of its equipment, utilizing new technology and making sure that it offers its customers the best quality and freshest product in the industry.

“We’re doing more in that regard, and might even be getting a drone this year,” Russo said. “The things we have purchased already, it’s worked out really well. The quality has never been better. We have gone through the entire spring with all the product off our farm without a single issue or rejection. I don’t know too many who can say that.”

Not that there aren’t challenges impacting the company. Along with the forementioned “too much product” out there, Russo points to labor and higher costs for just about everything across the board as issues Russo Farms is dealing with.

“The main thing is to work with the customers we have and really be consistent,” he said. “Our whole business is not about home runs; it never has been and never will be. It’s about consistency and a lot of things we do is on a year-round basis. That’s why we’re focused on what we do. We focus on and grow our core items.”

Working in New Jersey, the company goes from its core items from the winter to a bigger variety in the summer, working with its neighbors on things like peaches, blueberries, peppers, squash, lettuce and more.

“The best part of working with Jersey product is that it’s in my backyard,” Russo said. “For instance, our lettuces, we pack them in the field, they’re cooled and on the truck that night. It’s a big differentiator from California where the product is four-days old when it arrives on a good scenario. If we do everything right, the customer will get four more days shelf life.”

That is particularly important for yellow squash, he added, which no matter how good the weather is, on the best day, the product is breaking down, so the sooner it gets at the customer’s door, the better.

“A lot of the items grown in New Jersey, like eggplants, the minute they are picked, they start to show age,” Russo said.

Behind the scenes at the company, Russo Farms brought in two new high-level managers — Anthony Mortellite, whose family has been in blueberries for his entire life; and Rafael Perez, who is working in logistics and production.