Edible - Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction

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edible blue ridge
Member of Edible Communities
Celebrating the food culture of Central Virginia, season by season
Number 16 Fall 2012
www.edibleblueridge.com
THANKFUL
for FARMERS
a feast at Clifton Inn
GROWING, GROWING...GONE!
GRAPE PICKER FOR A DAY
GIFTS FOR FOODIES
Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction
plus holiday wine-and-cheese pairings
local eats and must-have gadgets
GROWING, GROWING, GONE!
Fast action and slow food at the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction.
BY STEVE RUSSELLt PHOTOS BY JUSTIN IDE
G
IVE ME $10 BILL GIVE ME $10 BILL,
$10 bidder number 23 now who will
give me $11 give me—$11 number 35
now $12 who will give me $12.…”
If you’re a newcomer to the Shenandoah
Valley Produce Auction, this is a bad time to
have an itchy nose. Sure, you can probably
sneak a quick scratch without being mistaken
for one of the chefs, market owners, or home
canners who flock here to bid on super-fresh
local produce at bargain prices. Or you might
end up wondering what to do with the trunk
full of yellow onions you just won by mistake.
“…Sold for $13 to bidder 23!”
Whew, a brief respite to attack that itch
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FALL 2012
before five pecks of picture-perfect okra go on
the block. Just a moment, though.
“We try to average two-and-a-half lots
per minute,” says SVPA manager Jeff Heatwole, “so that there is a sale every 23 seconds.
These buyers have someplace to be, and their
time is money.”
No doubt, between the rapid-fire staccato of the auctioneer’s cry, the bidding wars
between rival buyers, and the hand trucks
whisking sacks of produce to waiting vans,
the auction is fast-paced enough to make
anyone’s pulse beat faster. It’s an interesting
juxtaposition, considering that all this commotion is surrounded by a bucolic patchwork
of Rockingham County dairy farms and
cornfields as far as the eye can see.
Much of this land near Dayton is tended
by Mennonite families, descendants of the
same Dutch-German immigrants who established communities in Pennsylvania in the
18th century. A group of local growers founded
the SVPA in 2005 as a place for farmers and
buyers to meet, spurred by the success of similar auctions in Mennonite and Amish communities in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Seven years
on, the SVPA is the largest wholesale produce
auction in Virginia, and operates out of a
20,000-square-foot pavilion constructed just
for that purpose. Auctions are held three days
a week at the height of growing season, with
80 farms and 80 buyers regularly showing up.
Although growers from a 100-mile radius are
welcome, two-thirds of the produce is raised
on farms within seven miles of the auction.
The sale starts at 9:30 a.m., but of course
the farmers, up for hours, arrive early. When
the sky brightens, a steady procession of green
John Deere, red Case IH, and blue New
Holland tractors chug onto the grounds,
interspersed with a few horse-drawn black
buggies. The tractors tow trailers loaded with
bushels and boxes and sacks of produce, and
usually a few kids. Most of the men wear
fedora-style straw hats; the women and girls
wear long, plain dresses and bonnets.
As the buyers trickle in, they climb aboard
the trailers to evaluate the day’s harvest. Russ
Simpson, owner of the Apple Shed produce
stand near Lovingston, zeroes in on a waisthigh mound of snap beans. They look like
they were picked about 15 minutes ago, but
to be sure he breaks one open and squeezes
until its clear juice squirts out. “I can go other
places, but the quality here is always really
good,” says Simpson as he jumps to another
trailer to check out some potatoes.
Also looking is Brett Wilson, whose
Charlottesville-based cooperative buying
club, Horse & Buggy Produce, sources largely
from the auction and its surrounding farms.
Wilson is an unabashed sampler, eating four
or five diced chunks from melons that have
been split and set out by the farmers.
Buyers from Herman’s Produce in Lexington, Stuart’s Draft Farm Market, and Great
Clockwise from left: Mounds of fresh Valley
produce wait to go on the block. Pole lima beans.
Auctioneer “Stump” Wenger keeps things moving.
Valu make the rounds too. Ryan Showalter,
owner of the Montezuma Produce stand just
down the road, sits on the tailgate of a red pickup near the end of the line. He frequents the
auction as both buyer and seller, bidding for
produce not raised in his own 12-acre garden
and selling any excess bounty—which today
is a few dozen boxes of squash and tomatoes.
“The key to this place is consistency,” he says.
“Buyers learn who has quality and come back
looking for the same growers every week.”
From the perspective of a food lover, the
variety and beauty of the dew-dripping produce piled high on these trailers is a testament
to the sheer agricultural bounty of the Valley. >
EDIBLE BLUE RIDGE
FALL 2012 | 39
Clockwise from left: Fall brings potatoes to market. Another trailer
enters the auction shed. Spaghetti squash for sale.
For these farmers, however, the auction’s mission is to turn cornucopia into commodity,
hard work into hard cash.
On cue, a few dozen tractors crank up
in unison and form a line that snakes into a
tall drive-through shed. Inside, elevated platforms allow the crowd of onlookers to view
the trailers’ contents as they pull up one at
time, and the auctioneer starts his cry.
“Got some cantaloupes, medium-size cantaloupes, give me $1 each $1 who will give me—$1
bidder 35 now $1.10 who will give me $1.10.…”
T
he growers stand on their trailers, lifting examples of their produce over their
heads, or sometimes even tossing a melon over
the railing to give potential buyers a better
look. Bidders’ hands flash—some bold, some
discreet—and in short order, large quantities
of butternut squash, cucumbers, and cabbage
come and go. You’ve got to know your produce here, and decide in a heartbeat to bid
on the Crimson Sweet watermelons, or wait
for the seedless variety you spotted just a few
trailers behind. “After you miss out on one or
40 | EDIBLE BLUE RIDGE
FALL 2012
two lots, you know you have to move a little
quicker,” says Heatwole.
An older man wearing suspenders and a
straw hat seems to win every other lot. Turns
out he’s an auction staffer trusted with placing proxy bids for several buyers who aren’t
present, such as Whole Foods and Standard
Produce. He consults his clipboard again
when the first lot of heirloom tomatoes goes
on the block. He’s got plenty of competition
for the red-and-yellow-streaked beauties; the
price rises to $13 for each flat holding about
15 tomatoes. Pricey until you consider that
they will likely be resold at retail for $35.
Cy Khochareun, chef of Taste of Thai and
Beyond restaurants in Harrisonburg, leans
over the railing to eyeball some red bell peppers that match the color of his T-shirt. But
when two other buyers drive bidding above $7
a half-bushel, he drops out. “I come to one or
two auctions a week,” he says. “It’s good because I can really see and touch the produce.”
His restaurants make a lot of egg rolls, so he
regularly bids on cabbage. As for those red
peppers, he wants them for stir-fry—at the
right price. Sure enough, when another lot is
offered minutes later, he wins it for half the
earlier price. “I always have fun at the auction,”
he says laughing. “I recommend it.”
Another strategy employed by experienced
buyers is the “backup” bid. For instance, if the
top bidder claims only 20 bunches of beets out
of the 40 bunches being sold, the next highest bidder can buy the remainder at the lower
price. Today, Russ Simpson uses a backup
bid to claim 11 bags of Katahdin potatoes
at $14.50 per 50-pound sack. “I like these
Katahdins because they’re a bit fluffier than
Kennebecs,” says Simpson, who obviously
knows a bit about potatoes and auctions.
Next up are seven boxes of heirloom pole
lima beans. If this were an art auction at Christie’s, these limas would be the Rembrandt
on the block—comely masterworks of neon
green pods, plump with beans the size of your
thumb. A reverent hush is quickly replaced by
fierce bidding, with double the usual number
of bidders making a play before—going once,
going twice—the limas finally bring an impressive $32 per half-bushel. It’s likely other
Clockwise from top: Gala apples attract bidder
interest. Chef Cy Khochareun gets a closer look.
farmers within earshot immediately add pole
limas to their mental grow lists for next year.
A
s the last tractor puffs out of the shed,
the crowd walks over to the pavilion,
where smaller lots are sold. Hungry folks head
straight to the tiny corner concession stand so
they have time to savor the excellent chickenand-wild-rice soup or a fat slab of peanut butter pie (or both) before round two begins.
“I love when we get into the fall season
with all of the different pumpkins, gourds,
and mums,” says longtime SVPA auctioneer
Linden “Stump” Wenger. At first it’s a shock
to hear him speaking at a normal human
pace, though he certainly deserves a break
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FALL 2012
after 90 nonstop minutes on the microphone.
He’s been around auctions since he was kneehigh, and works them because he “likes to get
at a job and get it done.”
As for the SVPA, he believes the auctioneer needs an affinity for produce—and produce buyers. “I know what each buyer wants,
and to be on the lookout for them,” Wenger
says. “And sometimes I know their top price
before they know it.”
Unlike the system in the drive-through
shed, produce in the concrete-floored pavilion is stacked on vintage wood carts or in
large bins along long, stationary rows, and
the crowd shuffles from one lot to the next.
The variety on display here is even more
impressive, perhaps because the smaller growers tend to be even more diversified. A stroll
down one row is a riot of blackberries, apples,
pears, garlic, onions, beets, eggplant, grapes,
hot peppers, and zucchini.
While some market buyers are loading their
vans and driving off, the ones who remain are
joined by a new contingent of home canners.
When planning to preserve a cellar’s worth of
local produce for the winter, you’re also likely
hunting for good prices. Need some extra Ball
jars and lids? Those are up for sale too.
“I still have to get some cantaloupes,”
says Simpson, leaving behind his already purchased potatoes, melons, squash, green peppers, and Roma beans. “The problem is that
in the past two weeks, cantaloupe has gone
from 20 cents to a buck each.”
Supply and demand, buy low and sell
high, those are the fundamental economic
theories that drive this place as much as any
stock-market trading floor. Of course, here you
can literally eat your losses—or winnings.
Horse & Buggy’s Wilson obviously wants
to win the deep-green poblano peppers now on
the block. He has to fend off several other interested bidders, but because of his persistence, his
customers very well might find these peppers in
the shares they start picking up tomorrow.
In fact, it seems that a core of regular buyers is responsible for the majority of purchases.
When the bidding starts on a lot of pretty
Gala apples near the end of the auction, however, none of them can compete with a thin,
unassuming woman in a long, plain dress.
Every time a hand is raised, Edith Beery of
Mount Sidney matches it, until a few minutes
later she is lifting five half-bushel bags into
the back of a dusty Ford Tahoe. This is her
first time at the SVPA. “We came just for fun,
but thought we might find some apples,” she
says with a reserved smile. “I like these Galas,
so when the price was right, I bid.”
Beery plans to share her bounty with
neighbors, at least until a passerby remarks on
what fine apples she just won. “I can probably
spare a bag,” she replies, getting modestly into
the spirit of the day. “Make me an offer.”
For more about the SVPA, including schedule,
go to svproduceauction.com.