Bland Farm's Delbert Bland Talks Peruvian Sweet Onions
GLENVILLE, GA - I don’t know about you, but the minute that September rolls around, I can’t wait to dive into savory vegetable dishes. These dishes would be incomplete without sweet onions, and I believe that Bland Farms’ President and Owner, Delbert Bland, would tend to agree with me.
I had the chance to chat with Delbert about the sweet onion season and how retailers can get people as excited about onions as I already am.
“We are in the early stages of harvesting and shipment,” he tells me, explaining that the company just started sending shipments of Peruvian onions to its customers during the last week of August. “We ship Peruvian onions in 40 lb boxes, and consumer packs come in 2 lb, 3 lb, 5 lb, 6 lb, and 10 lb bags.”
In addition to these bags, the company ships its product in high-graphic display boxes, sure to entice the masses to start revving their onion engines. Plus, with a tagline that promises “Premium Sweet Onions” and a sticker that showcases they’ve been grown in Peru, I’d be hard pressed to turn them away.
With Peruvian sweet onions available now through February, and shipped into Georgia, New Jersey, and California, I have to ask Delbert about how Bland Farms can get retailers in on the hype.
“Sweet onions are the most versatile of all of the onions,” he shares with me. “They can be used in a wide-array of recipes or as a stand-alone in the kitchen. Retailers should capitalize on this fact and show their consumers how to use the sweet onion in the kitchen. This can be done by displaying onions next to other vegetables and meat, such as tomatoes along with tortilla chips for salsa or in the meat department along with buns to add to hamburgers and hot dogs. Secondary displays can help promote and sell more sweet onions. Proper signage and recipes are also important. Bland Farms provides marketing tools for the retailers to use in their departments to help draw attention to the product.”
He concludes with this, clueing me in to how he truly feels about the product.
“Sweet onions are a premium product and need to be treated as such.”
Delbert, I daresay, you've made me love onions even more than I did before.
