2020 Georgia - part 15: Vidalia's sweet onion museum - Travel With Us

When we moved to Georgia almost 20 years ago, we started seeing sweet onions in the grocery stores, and I started using them every Thanksgiving in our Thanksgiving stuffing. After learning about these onions at this muesum, I may start using them all the time (except when needing to use red onions). A short drive from the park to Vidalia, a city with a population of over 10,000, took us to the Vidalia Onion Museum.

The Vidalia Onion Museum will tell us all we need/want to know about sweet onions.

This large, sweet onion greeted us in the lobby.

Can’t wait to learn about this onion like what we learned about growing potatoes in Prince Edward Island in Canada.

All onions grow like in this picture—a little below ground and the tops above ground.

*3 steps for growing Vidalia onion*s
1. a yellow granex hybrid seed that can produce a sweet onion only in this area
2. sandy soil that lets sulfur wash through the clay; low sulfur creates mild, sweet onions
3. Vidalias mature only in winter where the short days are mild and rain can ensure bulbs have a high water content

beginnings of onions

In ancient Egypt, the builders of the pyramids were paid in onions. They are mentioned in the Bible and were as valuable as gold in Medieval Europe. While millions of people associate onions with Vidalia, Georgia, the region’s commercial crop didn’t get started until long after its accidental discovery in the 1930s.

In 1949, Georgia built a State Farmers’ Market at a busy crossroads of a little town called Vidalia, nestled between Macon, Savannah, and Augusta. Travelers stopping here commented on the distinctively delicious onions sold at this market, and this unique taste began gaining regional recognition.

Le’s look in detail at this beginning of this new industry with the 3 farmers who made it happen.

*Mose and Alice Coleman*. He credited his wife with encouraging him to try onion seeds that were being touted in the catalogs.

Since local folks grew mostly “multiplier onions” like shallots, Georgia had to import cured onions, adding to their expense. Coleman saw no reason not to try growing his own, so he planted a quarter-acre of onions and was surprised by their unusual flavor.

Hauling his produce in a trailer he’d made from the back of a Model T, he peddled sweet onions from town to town. While the Great Depression had begun, Coleman sold his 50-lb sacks for $3.50.

Coleman described meeting a buyer for a grocery chain: “I pulled out my onion and I ate it there in front of him. He’d never seen anything like it. There wasn’t any tears coming out of my eyes, and I wasn’t making no face.” The buyer bought and advertised his managers to do the same. The next year, Mose Coleman planted 10x as many onions.

*Earlie Jordan* (pronounced “Jerdan” in Georgia) innovated better plant rows and overhead irrigation.

Growing an onion in Vidalia is not the same thing as growing a Vidalia Onion. Producing the now-famous vegetable requires the ideal locale plus the ideal species. Jordan made that connection.

In the 1940s, he started selling Texas onion plants—seedlings instead of seeds—to Georgia farmers. He also met Henry Jones of Texas A&M, who was hybridizing onions to meld the flavor of a Bermuda with the yield of a Grano. The resulting yellow granex, once Jordan established it in southeast Georgia, eventually became the Vidalia Onion.

Jordan partnered with Brand Produce to market onions through the Toombs County Plant Corporation. To support this fledgling industry, the state of Georgia built a farmers’ market in Vidalia where Jordan’s company and others packed, sold, and shipped their onions for 10 years. Onions were no longer simply sold at random but were actively marketed, forging the way for larger regional markets.

*Ed Tensley*—success in landscaping, including building a baseball field, prepared him for farming

Tattnall County had its own early producer of sweet onions, Ed Tensley, who called the crop “Georgia Sweet Onions,” not “Vidalia Onions.” After returning from WWI, Tensley was an agriculture major in New Jersey and then moved to Glennville, Georgia, in the mid-1940s.

Working about 700 acres (500 of his own), Tensley planted some of the county’s first tomatoes and onions. He owned one of the region’s first tractors and was passionate about improving farming techniques by introducing the practices of crop rotation and pond irrigation.

The well-educated Tensley became widely respected for his generosity to the community’s schools, including his donation of the first school bus to transport local black children. He hired both black and white farmhands and was willing to share his expertise with all area farmers. Tensley’s obituary remembered, “the wonderful contributions he brought and shared with the farmers of Tattnall County and adjacent counties.”

*Doyle Smittle* added to the industry by researching how to maintain the sweet onion’s quality through controlled-atmosphere storage so they can be enjoyed all-year round.
*W.J. Grimes* invested $1M to build the first controlled-atmosphere storage facility based on Smittle’s research, and his gamble paid off for the entire Vidalia Onion industry.

In the early 1970s, Georgia onion promotion was fragmented and confusing. Here are some of the labels: “Glennville Sweets” or “Tattnall County Sweets,” private labels like “Vidalia Sweets” or “Pride of Piggly Wiggly Brand Vidalia Onions.”
The *New brothers* began aggressively marketing “Vidalia” onions and became the largest grower-shipper. Capitalizing on the Vidalia name, they began producing products like relishes, salad dressings, and onion rings. This emphasis on marketing qualifies them as Vidalia visionaries.
Visiting the Brand Brothers in Texas, they learned how to plant 4 rows in the space that Georgia growers were planting one. The result was 800 bags per ace instead of 200.

After 3 years of drought , along with a boom and bust in the early 1940s, most farmers pulled back from planting quantities of onions. Not so *Pinky McRae*. In addition to growing and selling onions, he piloted the idea of using the vegetables as corporate gifts, annually supplying Georgia Power with 2000 bags of onions. People started placing orders in February for the April harvest, and fans from the region would journey to the area to buy the sweet onions.
The nickname? He earned it in his red-faced high school basketball days. His onions were marketed as “Toombs County,” not “Vidalia,” onions. In a North Carolina restaurant, a sign touted “Pinky’s Onions.”

By 1940, the Great Depression saw the precursor to Piggly Wiggly, Tanner-Brice wholesale producer, struggling to survive. An energetic salesman, Phil Friese, however, convinced a NY investment firm to back the troubled company.

Friese’s first season went extremely well because of a poor harvest in Texas, so in 1942, he urged farmers to expand their plantings. Bags were bought, boxcars hired, and Friese marketed the onions nationwide. But . . . that year Texas had a bumper crop and Georgia had rainy weather. Heaps of rotting onions covered more than an ace, stood 30 feet high, and wafted its stench for more than 10 miles. Some accounts say Friese fled to California to escape an angry mob; other accounts hailed Friese as an aggressive early marketer who simply left in 1942 to serve in the South Pacific.

*Gerry Achenbach* helped establish the Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain. Since he was on site and personally selected the farmers he bought from, his Vidalia-based enterprise had the most reliable supply of Georgia sweet onions. In 1963 the store chain built a state-of-the-art distribution center in town where Achenbach could influence produce distribution across the South. He consistently used the word “Vidalia” to describe the onions he grew, the lyrical name stuck in people’s memories.
Another grower’s son became a State Representative and introduced an early bill attempting to make it illegal to grow a “Vidalia Onion” outside a defined region.

Gerry Achenbach and his successor, Robert Frost, annually sent onions to every supermarket chain president and U.S. Congressperson, helping to establish these onions in Vidalia’s history.

tools for growing onions

The scratcher (top of the picture) loosens the soil. Next the hole peggers (2 versions) creates holes for planting at even distance from each other.

Then the fertilizer is spread over the soil.

This plow blade pulled by a mule “undercuts” the onion plant to separate the roots from the bulbs. More about its use is included in the cycles of growing onions.

organizing the growers

In early 1983, onion growers in 8 counties organized to obtain federal legislation to protect the integrity of the region’s sweet onions. The sale of Texas and Mexican onions as Vidalia onions caused problems for the local growers in the past.

With the threat of fraudulent sweet onions being grown in other locations, the growers began to organize. A newly formed growers association agreed to work together and voted at last to use only the name “Vidalia Onions.” Ownership of this trademark was necessary for federal protection. Bruno’s supermarket chain had acquired the legal mark when buying Piggly Wiggly but agreed to turn it over to the growers.

Fearing problems if only a few industry insiders controlled the trademark, the growers chose to sign over the Certified Trademark for Vidalia Onions to the Georgia’s Commissioner of Agriculture’s office. This impartial third party could help producers collect Vidalia royalties, assess fines for trademark infractions, and establish quality standards.

A *Federal Marketing Order*, authorized by Congress, helps stabilize market conditions for fruits and vegetables. Industries voluntarily enter into these programs, choosing to have Federal oversight of certain aspects of their operations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture manages the programs in the public interest. Marketing Order 955 operates out of this building, promoting Vidalia Onions all over the country and ensuring their quality by funding ongoing crop research.

The light and dark green highlighted areas in the Georgia state law and Federal Marketing Order include all or portions of 20 counties in southeast Georgia.

Not only is trying to grow Vidalia onions elsewhere not just illegal, it’s a waste of time. One avid fan once drove to Vidalia from North Carolina and hauled a load of dirt back home to try replicating the Vidalia taste. All he got for the hassle was a bunch of sandy soil and hot onions.

The counties in dark green can grow Vidalia onions anywhere in the county. Counties in light green need to get their soils approved for Vidalia onions since not all of their soil would work.

The Vidalia Onion is now our Official State Vegetable based on the designation in 1990. Other states, including Washington with its Walla Walla sweet onion, have battled to get their own state veggies officially represented.

growing Vidalia Onions

These onions are still predominantly hand-planted and hand-harvested as they were in the 1930s to guard their delicate nature from start to finish.

*planting*: one planter can plant 1/2 acre per workday; since 12,000 acres planted each year, that’s a lot of labor
*harvesting*: a worker needs a full day to clip enough onions to fill 150 bags; 4 workers can hand-harvest just 1 acre per day or 600 bags. Less than 2% of Vidalia Onions are mechanically harvested
*shipping*: around 200 million pounds of Vidalia Onions are shipped each season

growing Vidalia Onions is a year-round job

September – planting

All onions come from seed, but most Vidalia Onions are started in seedbeds, become seedlings, and then are moved into precise rows where they’ll mature. This transplanting requires extra labor but farmers know transplants are less susceptible to weeds and other dangers.

November to January – transplanting

Once seedlings are about as thick as a pencil, they’re ready to transplant. A spiked “pegger” wheel (remember the planting tools we showed you earlier in this post?) pierces holes for each plant. Originally these peggers were hand-held contraptions used like a push mower, but today they’re tractor attachments.

first wave of planting: Hand-pulled, bundled transplants are tossed along seemingly endless rows. Workers manually insert each tiny plant where it will grow to maturity. Around 80,000 seedlings can be planted in a typical ace.

second wave of planting: The second wave of “setting” occurs around New Year’s. These 2 crop cycles prolongs the harvest season for the farmers and ensures against total plant loss during an uncooperative weather.

November to May – growing

During these winter months, farmers are fertilizing, irrigating, and protecting plants against pests. With organic onions, weed control is especially labor intensive. For all Vidalias, adequate water is crucial for the onion’s sweetness, and rainfall is supplemented with irrigation.

Deadly threats are high and cold temperature extremes, as well as badly timed wet or dry spells.

April to June – harvesting

If Georgia’s sweeties survive flood, drought, cold, hail, disease, and other maladies, springtime brings harvest. Timing is crucial for onions to be fully ripe but not too ripe so they’re susceptible to rot.

When the green tops start to sag, crews slowly and carefully “undercut” the onions with a plow blade to separate the roots from the bulbs. Undercutting pushes the bulbs above the soil where they can heat-cure in the field so each onion can develop protective outer layers. Laborers return a few days later to hand-clip roots and foliage. Bulbs are transported to the packing shed for further drying, sizing, and packaging.

April to June – drying

Onions are lightly dried to increase shelf life. This process creates husks, which are mostly brushed off during grading. These dry outer layers are not separate skins, but they *are* helpful to keep out chemicals and make put onions on top of the list of safe produce.

April to September – grading

Dried onions travel along a packing line where brushes whisk off dirt and hulls. After being hand-inspected for quality, they are boxed or bagged for shipping. Grading provides quality control by kicking out damaged onions. Grading also sorts the crop by size, a USDA-regulation (just like quality). Finally a job where workers can stand up.

April to September – distribution and storage

The same high water content that makes Vidalias mild also makes them more difficult to keep and ship. To ensure quality, they head for market within days of harvest. But short-term and long-term storage helps extend the time Vidalias can be sent to market.

For short-term storage, Vidalias are held in huge coolers. The delicate onions are then transported in refrigerated trucks. Overage goes into long-term storage when Vidalias are retrieved as needed. These harvested onions are rendered as dormant in controlled-atmosphere storage that monitors temperature, humidity, and oxygen levels. This long-term storage allows farmers to grow double the crop and lets us enjoy Vidalias for twice as long.

marketing

The rest of the museum shows us all the uses of Vidalia Onions and how they have been marketed over the years.

The building that now houses the museum has a story of its own. Originally it was the Farm Credit building and was moved to this location in December 1999. Because of its size, it was the largest building to be moved in one piece within Georgia at the time. Utility crews had to move power lines prior to the transfer. Highway 280 (the building’s original home) was shut down, and people lined the street for miles, watching its progress like a parade.

Vidalias have had to continually prove themselves against rivals, especially the Walla Walla onion of Washington State.

When a 1980 Wall Street Journal article proclaimed Vidalias “the caviar of onions,” folks in Walla Walla staged a contest without alerting Vidalia to the competition; of course Walla Walla won. Vidalia demanded a rematch.
When the next harvest rolled around, Eastern Airlines employees in Seattle and Savannah came up with a second transcontinental taste test. Even with Walla Walla doing the voting, Vidalia won.

advertising in Toombs County, location of this museum

Through the mid-1970s, Vidalia called itself the “City of Progress.” Changing its slogan to the “Sweet Onion City” in 1979 helped focus local marketing efforts and put this Southern town on the map.

Impact: 12,000 acres of onions planted annually, 2 M pounds of onions sold each year, 100 farmers registered to grow and sell Vidalia onions each year, $150 M value of crop sent to market annually, $350 M economic impact for Georgia from related marketing activities

Vidalia’s first onion festival was held in April 1978. Now it features everything from an air show and rodeos to a kiddie parade and concerts. This festival draws tens of thousands of visitors.

When an onion-eating contest was shown on network news in the early 1980s, even more national interest was drawn to this onion that could be eaten like an apple.