By Barbara Wunder, FFVA Communications Manager

Although Gary Wishnatzki’s grandfather started the family agricultural operation in Plant City in 1929, the part of the business located in the heart of Manatee County tomato country, G & D Farms, has only been around for 20 years. And it’s growing to satisfy the demand for strawberries nationwide.

“G & D Farms grew its first crop in 1986,” said Wishnatzki, president of the operation based in Duette, which is between Wauchula and Parrish. “We transported all the produce up to Plant City.” A few years ago, the farm’s management decided some changes were in order. “We recognized that it’s critical to cool the fruit rapidly, so we invested several years ago in some mobile pre-cooler units. We began to cool the fruit here at the farm and take it to Plant City to ship out,” he said.

Gary Wishnatzki heads the Wishnatzki Farms operation.

And more change was on the horizon. After increasing G & D’s acreage, the company decided to build a new cooling and shipping facility on Highway 62 in Duette.

“We thought it was time that we have a facility here where we could cool the fruit faster,” Wishnatzki said. “And it also made sense because we were able to cut down on trucking costs to our facility in Plant City.”

Today, G & D cools and ships from the new facility, saving the operation money as well as improving overall quality of the strawberries and other produce.  Besides its primary focus on strawberries, G & D grows bell peppers, squash, eggplant and various vegetables.

PARTNERING WITH GREEN GIANT

In addition to expanding G & D to include an on-site cooling and shipping, the company is moving forward on other fronts as well. Wishnatzki entered into a partnership in December 2005 with Green Giant to market products under that brand. Colorful Harvest  of Monterey, Calif., owns the exclusive rights to the Green Giant brand for strawberries, melons and several other crops. Wishnatzki now is the exclusive sub-licensee for Florida.

Boxes wait for the next crop at G & D Farm's new cooling facility in Duette.

“So we’re packing some for that label as well as the Wishnatzki Farms label and another label called Strawberry Joe,” said Philip Stanaland, G & D’s farm manager. “Some retailers prefer the Green Giant label, and others prefer Wishnatzki because they’ve had it for years.

“Green Giant had some chain-store business that we didn’t have,” said Wishnatzki. “The marriage works because we brought in some additional retail business that we were lacking.” Green Giant’s customer base had very little overlap with Wishnatzki’s, so the company wasn’t competing against itself.

HARVEST MACHINE CATCHES ON SLOWLY

Wishnatzki also leads the industry in the implementation of a relatively new idea – a machine that moves through the field, providing a conveyor belt on to which workers place freshly picked flats of strawberries. Previously, harvesters would have to haul each flat out of the field and load it onto a truck. Growers in Ventura County, Calif., have used the machine successfully for several years, but the concept hasn’t translated easily to Florida fields.

Philip Stanaland serves as farm manager at G & D Farms.

“The pickers don’t really understand it. It’s new, so it’s been hard to keep turnover down. In California they fought it at first, too, but now it’s the accepted way of doing things. Here, we’re the only ones in the area to use it, so it’s been tough,” Wishnatzki said. The company used the machines for the first time last year, and about halfway through the season it lost a good part of the crew.

Stanaland added, “We’re going to give it another go this year. It’s a pretty big investment and has the potential of cutting down the labor force, which could be beneficial in the times we’re living in.”

For more information on this type of machine, click here.

PROACTIVE IN FOOD SAFETY

In addition to strawberries, Wishnatzki's G & D Farms grows bell peppers, squash, eggplant and various vegetables.

Wishnatzki also is an innovator in the food safety arena. The company is working on ways to trace the plastic containers of strawberries, known as clamshells. “I think our industry should stay proactive to develop our own set of standards and hopefully keep the government’s hands out of it,” Stanaland said. “We need to be doing something similar to what the Florida Tomato Committee has been doing.

The company is developing a system that would use bar codes to trace product not only back to the farm, but also to the section of the farm where it grew, providing the time and date is was picked and even the identity of the person who picked it.

“From our perspective, it’s not only good for ensuring food safety, it’s good for quality control, too,” Stanaland said. “So if there was a problem with quality at a retail store, we could pick up a clamshell and find out all that information. Strawberry harvesting is different from, say, tomatoes in that the first guy to handle them is the last guy. There’s no grading, repacking and that sort of thing. The person who picks it is responsible for how the clamshell is packed,” Stanaland said.

MARKET CHANGES NET AN INCREASE

Market demand means more strawberries are being grown at more times in more areas of the country. Wishnatzki sells to most of the major retailers in the country, with the exception of the far western states.

Not long ago, the operation started harvesting in November to fill a market void. Now, the growing regions in Northern California plant varieties that are harvested later and the Southern California regions have one that comes up later in the season. “The Ventura County growers plant a summer crop, so they now have a fall crop that’s harvested from September through December. That’s significant,” Stanaland said.

Gary Wishnatzki is a third-generation grower. His father Joe Wishnatzki is shown here in 1960. Gary's grandfather Harris Wishnatzki founded the operation in 1929.

The new California varieties caused Wishnatzki’s market distribution to shrink, but all was not lost. Demand has grown for strawberries in general. “There’s more overall demand now than there was back when California had the void in November and December,” said Wishnatzki. “That’s good news.”

And Wishnatzki believes Florida will always have a good market share because of the high quality. “Although some retailers prefer, for whatever reason, California berries over the Florida ones, I can tell you that I eat strawberries every day on my cereal, even if they’re not in season here, and I don’t think there’s anything that tastes as good as a Florida strawberry,” he said.

“The retailers may like the California berries better because they think they can leave them on the shelf a little bit longer,” Wishnatzki said. “But for flavor and eating quality, there’s no question the Florida strawberry is better.”