There are many reasons as to why Parker Farms has been so successful for so long, but chief among those is its reputation for putting growers first.
“In fact, that’s our motto — ‘Growers First,’” said Sean McFadden, business development manager for the Oak Grove, VA-based company. “We’re 100-percent transparent, honest, and quick to alert growers of any possible problems, marketing issues and projections.”
That reputation led to a big jump in sweet corn this year, after Parker Farms arranged a deal with a major grower in Camilla, GA, that increased its acreage from about 750 to 1,400.
Sweet corn and broccoli are Parker Farms’ two major crops in Georgia, along with squash, peppers in partnership with about half a dozen farms on 2,500 acres of vegetable production.
Under normal conditions, representatives from Parker Farms make regular trips to look over crops and offer advice to growers. That hasn’t been possible this season because of COVID-19, but Parker Farms is still communicating with growers on the state of the crops.
“We talk to them every day,” McFadden said. “They send us pictures and we talk, and from what I see and from what I hear, things look excellent. They’ve had a fantastic growing season and it looks like it’s going to be a really good crop, from peppers to broccoli to sweet corn. So now we need a market, we need buyers out there. And in this virus year, we’re hoping that will come through.”
Jimmy Carter, sales manager for Parker Farms, noted the product is there and that growing conditions are good.
“We’d certainly like to see the retailers push as much American-grown product as possible, I think that’s something they can do,” Carter said. “To help the farmers, they can maybe lower the retails a little bit and do a bang-up job of putting promotions out there to help increase demand for those items. But that’s all to be determined. The craziest thing in the world is trying to predict what’s going to happen two or three weeks from now.”
The Coronavirus outbreak also has Parker Farms looking into pre-packing and new packaging methods.
“Thinking long-term, people might be more inclined to buy produce where they don’t have to touch a lot of raw product that’s not in a bag,” McFadden said. “But we haven’t made that step yet, that’s a big leap. You don’t just do that half-heartedly, you have to do it 100 percent.”
Another concern is labor and the issue of getting H-2A workers into the country.
“There’s a real issue of getting them across the border, both new H-2A workers and returning H-2A workers, which was supposed to be a given,” McFadden added. “Now they’re having trouble getting across. So without labor, all of this is for nothing if you can’t get it harvested.”
Parker Farms is also dedicated to sustainability, as proven by converting its headquarters to solar energy. And it’s that kind of commitment that has made the company such a success.
“The growers that we partner with, live and breathe produce and it’s been successful because of that,” McFadden said. “We’ve had others who think you can treat produce like cotton and just look at it every once in a while, and they inevitably fail. But the ones that we are working with now are tremendous, hard-working businessmen who know what it takes to make a profit at the end of the year.”
