FFVA CHAIRMAN JAY TAYLOR OF TAYLOR AND FULTON, INC.

SECOND GENERATION PRODUCER WITH AN EYE ON THE THIRD

Jay Taylor really never thought about going into any other line of work than the one he was destined to pursue. “I’ve always known. It’s something we both fell into naturally,” he says of himself and his brother, John.

Their father, Jack Taylor, founded Palmetto-based Taylor & Fulton, Inc. in 1953 with his friend Pete Fulton. The company now grows and ships premium mature green, vine-ripe and roma tomatoes year-round from its four locations.

“John runs the farms, and I take care of the packinghouse and office and go to meetings,” Taylor said.

GROWING SINCE 1953

FFVA Chairman Jay Taylor (left) and fellow Executive Committee Member Jim Mercer listen to a presentation at a recent committee meeting in Palm Beach.

In the early days, Jack Taylor and Pete Fulton also divided up duties. Jack ran the packinghouse and Pete served as salesman.
Jack’s sons grew up learning all they could about the business, and when the time came, each took on roles of responsibility.

“John attended Auburn University after a tour of duty in the Army before coming aboard running one of the farms. I graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in business in 1977 and came back to the business working in the packinghouse,” Jay Taylor said.

The company began its expansion in 1983 with the purchase of a Virginia location. It opened a Quincy operation in 1989 and one in Immokalee four years ago.
And the future looks young and bright, with John’s 38-year-old son Robert and Jay’s oldest, Jeremy, 24, taking over a good chunk of the duties. “Robert is one of our farmers, and Jeremy is running two of the packinghouses,” Jays said. “Of course, Jeremy does have to put up with someone looking over his shoulder,” he added.

THE PRICE OF A BARGAIN TOMATO

Taylor & Fulton’s success comes in spite of serious challenges. One of the most pressing is the price of tomatoes. “You can probably say it’s true for many commodities, but in the tomato business a major challenge is escalating costs that aren’t offset by escalating returns,” Taylor said.  In May, retail prices for tomatoes ranged from about $1.69 to $3.99 a pound in markets across the country. “Our buyers are only willing to pay $4 to $5 for a 25-pound box of tomatoes. It costs us $8 a box to grow them,” he added.

Robert Taylor, John Taylor's son, farms for Taylor & Fulton.

A related issue, Taylor says, is wages. “One thing that really concerns me regarding producers specifically in Florida is the new federal minimum wage, coupled with the Florida minimum wage. The escalator is that it ties it to the consumer price index. They’re on the way to pricing us out of the market,” he said. “It goes back to getting enough for the product. How are we supposed to pay our employees? Labor is our number one cost already. And that’s going up every year.” The company also provides housing for its labor force, he added.

On the flip side, Taylor is upbeat about activities going on in Washington, D.C. “I think we have a wonderful opportunity ahead of us in the new farm bill in that we have a secretary of agriculture who’s getting behind specialty crops. And he’s a former governor of Nebraska. It must be fairly obvious that we have been shortchanged over the years,” he said.

INVOLVEMENT AND RESPONSIBILITY

FFVA Chairman Jay Taylor travels to Washington, D.C., and other locations often to promote the cause of Florida growers.

Taylor has been involved in FFVA since the early 1990s. During his first few years as a member, the association marked its 50th anniversary and revisited its bylaws. “The framers of the original bylaws said they had to be rewritten in 50 years,” he said. “What was really neat was that my dad and (fellow grower) Glenn Dickman’s grandfather had been signatories of the original bylaws, and there I was in 1993, sitting next to Glenn revising those bylaws.”

Taylor also is deeply involved with the Florida Tomato Committee and the growers’ exchange. He also serves on several advisory committees with the University of Florida/Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences and statewide in the Florida Agricultural Council, which has helped generate state funds for agricultural research, education, and protection programs.

The Taylor family is also involved in Young Life, a Christian outreach program for high school students. “All three of my kids were very active in it, and my 21-year-old daughter is going to be a leader starting in the fall as a senior in college,” he said. Taylor and his wife also have a 19-year-old son.

PRIDE IN HIS TEAM

The part of the job Taylor enjoys most is devising ways to make production more efficient. “I like the challenge of figuring out how best to set up the flow of product through the packing and handling,” he said.

And he gives credit to those who make it all happen. “What I’m really thankful for and most proud of are the employees we work with every day. Without them, we wouldn’t be here. With today’s pressures, we would have said ‘to heck with it’ a long time ago if we didn’t have the team around us that we do.”

Jack Taylor, Jay and John Taylor's father, is shown second from left in this 1947 photo. Paul Dickman is third from the right in the front row. The two were original framers of FFVA's bylaws. Fifty years later, Taylor's son and Dickman's grandson helped revise those bylaws.