Adept at diversification

Photo ©Jon Eckard PhotographyAs it has for many growers, the contraction of the floriculture industry has had a major impact on Banner Greenhouses in Nebo, N.C. At one time, the 12-acre wholesale grower sold directly to mass-market retailers. Not anymore. The company is still supplying the mass merchants, but as a contract grower to other large growers. As a result of the changes in the supply chain, Banner Greenhouses has looked to diversify both its customer base and its product offerings.

“We chose not to grow garden mums or poinsettias—crops we can’t make money on,” said general manager Jeff Mast. “We’ve also turned down some business for spring that just isn’t profitable. We are a small, family-owned business and we have to turn a profit. We would have to add production space to meet the demand. To go through the expense of adding additional greenhouse space for low margin products doesn’t make much economic sense.”

Banner does sell some finished plants to local municipalities and to a landscaper.

“Our plants are used in landscaping at some military bases and resorts along the coast,” Mast said. “Percentage-wise, 90 plus percent of our products are contract grown for the mass markets. We are trying to grow and market that direct business where we can. It’s a volume issue. We have 12 acres of production. We won’t compete with our customers.”
 

Opportunities with vegetables
Mast said his company is always looking for opportunities—market niches.

“We are looking for opportunities where there are some margin options and we have some control,” he said.

Banner has begun selling vegetable transplants for field production directly to local growers and some growers in western North Carolina.

“Some of the growers are involved with community-supported agriculture and others sell their produce through farmers markets,” Mast said. “This is the second year for us, but really the first year that we have started to see much growth in sales.”

One of the advantages of growing vegetable transplants is that they are usually out of the greenhouses before the space is needed for contract-grown spring crops.

“The transplants help us to diversify our product and customer base,” Mast said. “Our space is maxed out during the peak of spring. This helps us to produce some off-season cash flow. We can pick up some early sales in February and March by growing the transplants.”

In addition to growing the transplants for spring, Mast said the company has done a minimal number of transplants for fall planting, primarily root and cole crops.
 

Finished vegetables
Most of the spring crops are out of the greenhouses by the end of May. Contract-grown crop production starts back up in August, September and October with fall crops of pansies and ornamental cabbage and kale.

Since Banner wasn’t producing poinsettias, Mast said the company was looking for a crop that could go in during the fall and be finished in time for spring crops. Last fall the company produced finished crops of tomatoes, colored peppers, cucumbers and green beans. The produce was marketed to a grocery chain and a broker that sells to restaurants and institutions.

“The produce was grown with organic inputs, pesticide-free and sold locally,” Mast said. “Our product had some real value since much of the competing produce is trucked in from out of state, may be treated with pesticides and has minimal flavor. Our product was marketed as locally grown, pesticide-free and vine-ripened. Most of the product was shipped within a 40-mile radius.”

Banner plans to repeat production of the finished vegetables with some refinements. The company will focus on tomatoes and peppers.

“We sold everything that we harvested. We didn’t waste any of the produce,” Mast said. “If the product had blemishes or was undersized, we donated it to a food bank. Our employees also got to take home some fresh produce.”

Mast said the produce that was going to the grocery chain had to be perfect and meet the retailer’s quality standards including grade sizes. Restaurants that used the vegetables for fresh dishes also wanted blemish-free produce. Some restaurants that made salsa did accept tomatoes with slight imperfections, such as being undersized.

Production improvements
Mast said that overall he was pleased with the yields of the tomatoes and peppers. He said the goal for this year’s crop will be to reduce the amount of shrink.

“Our overall yield on the tomatoes was very good. But within that yield there were too many that had deformities or there was shrinkage in the overall yield,” he said. “We are planning to grow fewer varieties that are less prone to some of the issues that prevented them from being sold. We are keeping two of the four tomato varieties that we produced. The two we are keeping had the highest yields and were more consistent in size uniformity.”

Mast said the company has also started the process of becoming Good Agricultural Practices and Good Handling Practices Audit Verification Program compliant.

“To sell to institutions like local school systems and to some other customers, program compliance will be mandatory,” Mast said. “This program is more related to hygiene and sanitation, handling temperatures and training. Fruit size, grading and blemishes are more customer-related issues.”
 

Greenhouse improvements
One area of production where Mast expects to see major changes is with environmental control.

“The biggest challenge we encountered growing the finished vegetables was managing the environment,” he said. “Being in a greenhouse, humidity became a problem. Humidity can impede calcium uptake, which resulted in blossom end rot on some tomatoes.”

To improve the air circulation around the plants, the roofs on 4 acres of low-profile gutter-connected greenhouses are being raised 4 feet.

“With the taller gutter height we expect to improve the air movement, which should help dissipate some of the humidity,” Mast said. “This year’s crop will be grown in a taller house with energy curtains. Lifting the houses gives us more advantages, including higher light levels, better control of the temperature and humidity, and the ability to install curtains and irrigation booms. We’re now able to make some major improvements to the greenhouses and the crops in them.”
 

For more:   Banner Greenhouses, (828) 659-3335; www.bannergreenhouses.com.
 

Serious about sustainability
Banner Greenhouses in Nebo, N.C., has found that working to become more sustainable can pay off in a big way. By implementing a variety of sustainable practices, the company has been able to either reduce its costs or actually make money from its activities.

Having become a contract grower, the company has reduced its shipping radius by more than 50 percent.

“For the 2011 spring season we are shipping probably less than 800 miles with the majority of deliveries within 200 miles,” said general manager Jeff Mast. “Previously when we shipped direct, we delivered to over 300 stores in nine states.”

The company is recycling its plastic film used on its 6 acres of quonset greenhouses. Banner worked with Sky Recycling (www.skyrecycling.net) in Charlotte, which drove out to the operation to pick up the discarded film.

“We baled and palletized the film and then they picked it up,” Mast said. “Since starting that relationship, we have been contacted by other companies that are looking for sources of material to recycle.”

Banner is also recycling the wooden pallets it receives its supplies on, such as growing media components.

“If we buy 25 truckloads of peat moss for the spring, that is a lot of pallets,” Mast said. “We work with a local company, Carolina Pallet Recycling, that builds and refurbishes the pallets. They buy the used pallets from us even if they are broken. They repair them and resell them. If they can’t be repaired, the company turns the pallets into mulch.”

Any discarded growing media goes to a compost pile behind the facilities. Mast said the media is collected from the soil-mixing area and from sweeping out greenhouses between crops.

“We allow our employees to take the collected media and put it into their gardens” he said. “We’d rather see it reused or recycled than to go into a dumpster.”

This will be the third spring that Banner will use biological controls on its annual crops. Each of the last two years the company has expanded its use. All of its liners and plugs are grown with biological controls.

“When finishing the annuals we start out with biologicals and then if we have an outbreak we go to pesticides. It’s a combination of controls,” Mast said. “Our goal is to grow the plants with 100 percent biologicals. The reality is it comes down to the pest or disease pressure we’re under. For some crops it is very easy to do 100 percent biologicals. For some crops that attract thrips or aphids, it is more difficult to control totally with biological controls.”

Banner works with MGS Horticultural Inc. (www.mgshort.com) in Leamington, Canada, to provide its biological controls. MGS, which works with greenhouse vegetable growers, also assisted Banner when it was setting up its finished vegetable production program.