New Jersey’s link between its agricultural producers and the state’s students — as current and future customers for agriculture — continues to be a focus of efforts by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture to expand produce market opportunities.

SWEDESBORO, NJ — Maugeri Farms was packing one of New Jersey’s signature spring vegetables, asparagus, when The Produce News visited this grower, wholesaler and distributor in early May.

The long, cold winter of 2013-14 was pushing back the starting dates of virtually all produce items grown in the Garden State and elsewhere in the eastern United States. Maugeri Farms was seeing that first hand.

“We started packing asparagus the last week in April,” Joe Maugeri told The Produce News May 5. That’s “at least a week later than normal.”

“The demand for local produce fits perfectly with our business model, and we are expanding on it exponentially,” Frank Dandrea, president of Dandrea Produce in Vineland, NJ, told The Produce News.

“Our model begins with the grower with whom we work in the planning and financing processes to grow the crop to fulfill the programs that we have preset with our retail partners. We then monitor the crop throughout the growing process, harvesting, quality control, packaging and finally distribution.”

VINELAND, NJ — When The Produce News visited Marolda Farms in early May, the volume of New Jersey-grown fresh produce items on hand was less than normal. Like everyone else involved in agriculture in the Garden State and in many areas of the eastern United States, Marolda Farms was feeling the effects of the brutal winter of 2013-14, which had pushed back the harvesting dates of most items by many weeks.

VINELAND, NJ — Like everyone else in southern New Jersey, The Fresh Wave is dealing with the hand Mother Nature has dealt: a late start to virtually all produce items, thanks to the long, cold, snowy winter of 2013-14.

“The spring season is almost a month late,” Tom Consalo, vice president of The Fresh Wave, told The Produce News May 6. “You almost lose 30 days, and you can’t make it up.”

VINELAND, NJ — Food safety, always a concern to both the produce industry and to consumers, seems to be more on everyone’s minds these days, according to Jay Krichmar, president of Krichmar Produce Co.

“The general populace seems to be more concerned the last few years with food safety,” Krichmar told The Produce News in early May. “Chainstores are pushing the issue of food safety. And we’re doing everything in our power to comply with all the food-safety regulations.”

He continued, “We’ve been doing it all these years, but now we’re crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s.”