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- Yields Aren’t Everything
- Tallmans sell most of their
potatoes within 100 miles
- By Mary and Bill Weaver
Pennsylvania Correspondents
- The Tallman potato farm has gotten ahead by getting to know their customers. As potato growers looking to directly market their product, they pay close attention to customer’s needs, then packing to meet those needs.
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Joe Tallman in the farm’s potato storage warehouse.
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- The Tallman potato farm is in a beautiful green valley circled by mountains near Tower City, Pa. The farm is a family operation, with no less than four brothers and one sister, plus several spouses, involved in the work.
The Tallmans have developed some interesting and profitable marketing niches for a large portion of their potato crop. Most of their potatoes are sold to customers within a 100 mile radius of their farm. Last year, they were farming some 700 acres, with 160 acres in potatoes.
The potato varieties they grow are carefully chosen with those customers in mind.
“We choose varieties tailored to our customers’ needs, for flavor, cooking quality, cooking characteristics, and storage quality,” Richard Tallman said. “Yield is not the determining factor.”
The flavor and cooking quality of their spuds is particularly important because many of their customers are end-users of the potatoes, which convert the crop directly to table use in restaurants or French fry concessions. The fresh French fryers prefer the cooking qualities and flavor of the Norwis or Reba varieties, which the Tallmans store at 45-50°F.
“People are looking for potatoes that fry,” noted Richard. Last summer, he visited a Pennsylvania farm market, and met a french fry maker who was using out-of-state potatoes. Richard left his card. In December, the fry maker called the Tallmans and said he couldn’t get any potatoes that would fry. He picked up a supply, which the french fry maker anticipated would last three weeks. “On Saturday of the same week he called me and said he was out of potatoes and needed more,” Richard said. “Simply by using our potatoes, he tripled his weekly demand.
“In America, in general, I think there is too much emphasis on yield, appearance, and storage qualities, and not enough emphasis on taste. Someone has to eat, and enjoy eating, the potatoes we grow.”
Many of the Tallmans’ customers have been with them for years, although they constantly prospect throughout Pennsylvania and the eastern states for new customers. Although their peaceful valley farm seems very rural and isolated, as sister Virginia Morton noted, “Our location is really suburban Harrisburg. It helps that we’re only 45 minutes away by truck.”
According to brother Joe, their sales are aided by the many restaurants in the mid-state region that still order fresh potatoes to cook, and the many summer festivals and fairs that are supported by french fry concessions.
Other potato varieties grown include Reba, Superior, Eva (NY 103), and Katahdin. These varieties are marketed both through store door delivery and to produce distribution warehouses, which purchase about one-third of their crop.
The Tallman packing line takes from eight to 10 workers, and is equipped to handle trailer load quantities of all sizes. They also pack specialty potatoes, such as counts, chefs, and size B. A top seller in their store door delivery is their “Farm Show” package, which is a round white baking potato of fancy quality.
Excellent service is a hallmark of their potato business. Deliveries run five days a week, and warehouse pick-up is available on Saturdays.
“When we get an order,” explained Sue, Joe’s wife, who combines office work and taking orders with other duties, “we try to deliver it the next day.”
Bill Tallman makes many of the deliveries, in trucks varying from a van to a 18-wheeler. He often combines delivery with marketing, and has developed many new customers along his routes by dropping samples on his way.
Customers are served on a year-round basis. Once the Tallmans’ crop is sold out, usually by mid-May, they begin purchasing potatoes from the South. “We start with growers in Florida, in the Hastings area, and move up the eastern seaboard as the season progresses,” said Joe.
“The potatoes are harvested the same day they are washed and shipped,” added Richard.
The Tallmans are careful not to overplant on potatoes, keeping their production currently to 160 acres, so they can sell their entire crop to their regular customers for better prices.
“We want to grow no more than we can sell profitably,” Richard said.
The potato crop is planted in May, and the operation generally uses whole size B seed, which is purchased through the Maine Farmers’ Exchange. The Tallmans also supply seed potatoes to many potato farmers in the mid-state region, and therefore are able to obtain good quantities of seed at competitive prices.
Brother Bill plants all of the potatoes, with the other brothers coordinating the planting effort, and handling all tillage. The Tallmans use a three-year rotation with corn, oats, and rye. The grains are sold to local feed mills and for certified seed.
To increase organic matter in the soil, Joe explained, “One of those three years, we interseed the grain with orchard grass, let it stand for the summer, and then plow it under.”
George, the oldest brother in the family, is the field manager, and is responsible for the spraying program on all crops, as well as the harvesting of all grain crops. The potato harvest requires all hands present, with George and Joe in the field with the harvesters and a five- man crew, and Bill and Rich handling the movement of potatoes into the four- bin, 50,000-cwt. potato storage.
Another division of the company, under Joe’s leadership, is the marketing of poly and paper potato bags to about 75 growers throughout the east. Bags are bought wholesale by the tractor trailer load from a Canadian manufacturer, and are warehoused at the farm. “Orders can be as small as 5,000 bags, and bags can be customized with the grower’s own design,” noted Joe, who also sells Fischbein sewing supplies and bag closing equipment.
The original farm of 88 acres has been in the family for five generations. The four brothers, along with their Father George W., expanded the acreage owned over the past 50 years to the farm’s current acreage. George W. Tallman was a well-known Pennsylvania potato farmer until his death in 1999, and enjoyed a varied and profitable business with his sons as partners.
The farmers have all been involved throughout their lifetimes in various community and potato organizations. Currently, Joe is serving on the United States Potato Board, his second term on the Potato Research Board in Pennsylvania, and is on the board of the Pennsylvania Cooperative Potato Growers, a marketing association. Bill is the vice president of the Lehigh County Potato Growers. Sue serves as church organist, and Bill, George and Joe serve on their church councils.
Joe has this advice for potato growers looking to do more direct marketing. “Get to know your customers,” he said. “Try to make the potatoes you pack meet their needs. Tell them you’ll be there for them as long as you have potatoes in the warehouse or the field, and if possible, try to serve them year-round by buying in potatoes when necessary.”
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