The Vidalia Onion  

With the extremely tight truck market driving prices to heights we have not seen in recent past, our office is very appreciative of the fact that our shippers remained very loyal to us.   

Without a doubt our strongest season this year was the Vidalia onion market.  The Vidalia onion is indigenous to Southern Georgia and thirteen counties in the state have permission to plant them.  Georgia is the fourth largest producer of onions in the US, behind Washington, Idaho-Eastern Oregon, and California.  Shipping this year's Vidalia crop has not been without it's challenges; however, we continue to work hard with our carriers to make sure that we are providing "CANI" ("Constant and Never-ending Improvement" service for the valued customer).   

We have been able to provide CANI through education of both carriers and shippers alike.  We worked with our customers to understand important factors, such as when loads were harvested how long they spent in the cooling warehouse prior to ship date, and then made sure that our drivers were taking pulp temperatures at loading time and notifying us of those temperatures.  We then set about working with carriers and shippers to insure that product landed at the correct temperatures and correct pallet formations, thereby minimizing many typical receiving issues and ensuring customer satisfaction.

The NOA website was a tremendous resource for us to use when making sure we were reaching maximum proficiency during our onion transports.  You can refer to their "Handling and Storage" information page to get a more comprehensive understanding.    

russ.oquinn@allenlund.com