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Growers Decide to Skip Brokers and Sell Fruit Directly

Lakeland Ledger – September 18, 2009

LAKELAND | Neil Combee and Lewis King come from families that have been farming in Polk County for generations. In the past, they followed the traditional method of selling their fruits and vegetables to brokers who would distribute the produce to stores.

Now Combee and King, friends for decades, are taking their crops directly to the people. On Thursday, their families opened a produce market, Indian Summer Farms, at the corner of Knights Station Road and Galloway Road in the Griffin area, northwest of Lakeland. The property is one of several Combee’s family owns in the area.

Combee, 50, said the guiding principle behind the market is providing fresh, locally grown produce at lower prices than customers would find in grocery stores.

The appeal of locally produced food has grown in recent years, spurred by both nutritional and environmental concerns. “Locavores” strive to eat only food grown within a certain radius of their homes.

That ethos might be trendy, but Combee said in practice it’s actually a return to the old days. Combee, a former Polk County commissioner and a governing board member for the Southwest Florida Water Management District, recalled spending Saturdays as a child with his mother at a downtown Lakeland farmer’s market, where they sold their freshly picked crops.

“I don’t think that’s anything new; I think people prefer locally grown (foods),” Combee said. “The other reason why we felt the time was right is people are looking to stretch their food dollar, and we’re convinced, on the stuff we can grow, if we kind of take a middleman or two out of it and get it directly to the consumers at a good price, it should be a win-win situation for us and the consumers.”

Combee and King said whenever possible they will sell locally grown items, whether their own crops or those grown by fellow farmers in Polk County. Combee, whose family specializes in cattle farming, grows pecans, guavas, strawberries and greens. King, who has a hydroponic farm near Lake Hancock, grows strawberries, tomatoes, peppers and herbs.

King’s family specializes in citrus, and he said the market will sell fresh-squeezed orange juice during the season.

“It’s not organic, but certainly locally grown is our thing,” King, 50, said. “It just depends on the time of the year. When stuff is in and we can get it locally, absolutely we want to have that here. But we want to be a full-service produce market.”

That means the owners will offer some items not grown locally, at least at certain times of the year. For Thursday’s opening, the stand’s wooden bins offered much of the same range of items found at a supermarket. There were several varieties of tomatoes and squash, rutabagas, watermelons, apples, pears, Florida avocados, peaches and more.

Combee and King said they had been mulling the idea of a produce market for about 15 years. They finally committed to the idea and began constructing the stand about seven months ago. At this point, the employees consist of family members.

The open-air store has a nostalgic aura. It’s a long, barn-like, wooden structure with a red tin roof.

Family members hand-painted most of the signs, some of which read “Farm Fresh” and “Good For Ya.” A border around the stand consists of limestone boulders and rough-hewn pine logs from Combee’s property.

The store hummed with activity Thursday morning, as Combee and King buzzed around, coping with a balky cash-register and other first-day glitches.

Barbara Applewhite of nearby Kathleen stood in line waiting to buy tomatoes, an avocado and a watermelon.

“It’s very convenient, and the prices are great. It beats going to the grocery store,” she said.

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