“At this point, we are expecting a smooth transition moving northward this season,” Calvert Cullen, president of Northampton Growers Produce Sales Inc., headquartered in Cheriton, VA, told The Produce News on March 21.

However, the company, as with many other growers in Florida, took a hard hit with early pepper production due to freezes earlier in the year that caused a major bloom drop and numerous other issues.

“We ended up with almost no peppers from our early planting in Florida,” Cullen said. “The next harvest won’t start until about April 10. This has caused the markets to just about double. At this time of year, pepper prices are normally running between $14 and $16, but right now they are at around $30.”

Mexican pepper production, he added, also got hurt this year due to weather issues, and at the same time that Florida got hurt, and so Mexican producers and shippers were not benefiting off of Florida’s losses.

Higher market prices are always a good thing for producers like Northampton, but Cullen pointed out that if you don’t have product to sell, it’s pretty much a wash regardless of how high the market goes.

Northampton Growers Produce started harvesting cucumbers the week of March 17. Cullen said that the quality is outstanding and volumes were quickly increasing.

“We’ll have good volumes next week,” he noted. “We also started squashes this week, and those will also pick up strongly in volumes in the coming week. The markets on both cucumbers and squashes are good at this time.”

The company had just wrapped up one of the best St. Patrick’s Day cabbage movements in its history in mid-March, and Cullen said that demand and markets continued to stay strong even after the holiday.

“It really was one of the best Florida cabbage seasons we’ve ever had,” he said. “We anticipate starting cabbage at our Georgia farms between April 10 and 15, which will mean a smooth transition from Florida for us.”

Florida weather, with the exception of an occasional storm, has been warm, and so Cullen expects the rest of the season to go smoothly.

“This time of year some big storms get stirred up in the Gulf of Mexico and rip across Florida, and they can do some damage,” he said. “Hopefully we’ve seen the last of them for the season. We don’t start worrying about tropical storms or hurricanes — and that goes for all growing regions from Florida to the Carolinas — until the fall.”

Northampton Growers does a major job with its commodity crops in all of its growing regions. It follows the seasons from South, Central and North Florida, to Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and then on to Michigan. It then reverses its growing program and moves back toward the South for year-round supplies.

The company grows a full line of greens, including kale, collard, mustard and turnip greens, green, wax and flat beans, zucchini and yellow squashes, eggplant, hard squashes such as acorn, butternut and spaghetti squash, sweet corn, cucumbers, pickles, onions and more. Its pepper line is comprised of bell peppers as well as the more trendy peppers like Jalapeno, Cubanelle, finger hots and Hungarian wax.

Cullen’s partner in Northampton Growers is Steve McCready, who also serves as the company’s comptroller.

The company was founded in 1959 on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Since its start, the firm has grown from a two-person operation to a full-time in-house staff of more than 30 employees.

Northampton Growers produces and packs quality vegetables for distribution to chain stores, wholesale markets and terminal markets throughout the eastern United States. It works in cooperation with field inspectors at its operations in Fairfield, NC, Elizabeth City, NC, Moultrie, GA, Norman Park, GA, Hastings, FL, and Boynton Beach, FL.

Cullen said that things were lining up nicely for a smooth transition northward this year.

“The cold Northeast winter should mean that growers there won’t be coming on early this summer,” Cullen commented.

“That’s a good thing because when everyone stays in their own window and on schedule, business is good for everyone.”