Lovin' It! At the Loveville Produce Auction

Story by Sheila Gibbons Hiebert
Photography by Robert Tinari

The cantaloupes were just unbelievable. Plump. Fragrant. There were dozens of them, mounded up in a huge wagon.

As an expectant crowd watched, two muscular brown horses pulled the melon mountain into a drive-through aisle at the Loveville Produce Auction. Auctioneer Sam Walters blitzed through the bidding as potential buyers listened intently to the numbers. In a flash, those beautiful melons were sold and rolled out the door, and another loaded wagon pulled up.

It went on like that for three hours, averaging 2.4 transactions per minute, a scene repeated three times a week at the corner of Loveville Road (Route 247) and Bishop Road, just north of Leonardtown. The Loveville Produce Auction held its first wholesale auction in 2005 and has since become a fresh-food-and-flower sensation for the region's farm stands, florists, food distributors and grocers. In May and September, special auctions are held for consumers at which smaller quantities are available.

Farm stands abound in Southern Maryland, with their owners - including a number who are neither Amish nor Mennonite - selling their own crops and beefing up their offerings with produce and flowers purchased at the Loveville Produce Auction. Operations manager Henry Stauffer estimates that as much as 80 percent of the produce sold through the auction goes to farm stands. Much of that comes from Amish and Mennonite fields.

Stauffer seems to be everywhere at once at the auction house - talking to growers and buyers; conferring with Walters, an auctioneer who drives to Loveville from Delaware for the auction's sale days; checking messages on the auction's voicemail; and directing the placement of cartons arriving in a truck. Stauffer marvels at the amount of traffic the auction attracts, with at least one new buyer showing up every week.

"You come in here in the morning, the floor's completely empty. A few hours later, it's chock-full and then it's empty again," he said, as a woman walked past carrying a container of stunning pink amaryllis. In 2008, $1.8 million came through the auction, Stauffer said, exchanged by those possessing the 900 buyer/seller cards the auction has distributed since it opened.

The buyers come from an ever expanding list of communities in Maryland, including Glen Burnie, Ellicott City and Camp Springs, and in several Virginian communities, such as Arlington, Alexandria, Virginia's Northern Neck and Harrisonburg. One buyer is Shirley Jones who travels from Montross, Va.

Jones is typical of many of the auction's buyers in that she raises cantaloupes, corn, tomatoes and flowers, but not enough to supply her Virginian farm stands in Montross and Kilmarnock and a Saturday market in Haymarket - businesses she started in 1986 after she was widowed. In the last couple of years, "growth has really picked up," she said. "There are lots more people looking for fresh, fresh, fresh."

Jones said she comes to Loveville for the quality. "This is the only auction where you don't have to worry that there's bad stuff at the bottom of a box," she said. "There's always good stuff here - and the people are so nice over here, too."

Mockingbird Hill Farm owner Mike Stauffer, who operates a wholesale greenhouse in Loveville with his wife, Connie, runs the food concession at the auction and attributes the enthusiasm for the auction indirectly to consumers who have become more knowledgeable about food quality and more discriminating about what they buy and where.

"The general public is much more aware than 10 years ago about where food is coming from," he said. That prompts farm stand operators, grocery store managers and food brokers to flock to the auction for the quality and quantity of fresh produce that will meet rising customer demand.

Mike Stauffer said growers that supply fruit and vegetables to the Loveville Produce Auction follow clean farming practices.

"They keep the animal manure away from the fields that are planted in fruit and vegetables," he said. "I've never heard of anyone getting sick from the produce that comes through the auction." Contamination scares in other regions, such as the 2006 E. coli contamination of California spinach and the 2008 salmonella contamination of tomatoes thought to originate in Florida or Mexico, actually drove business to St. Mary's County farmers, he said, as "buy local" became not just a culinary or civic-minded choice, but a matter of food safety.

The action begins several hours before the bidding starts as growers begin rolling pallets of fruit, vegetables, flowers and plants into the auction house. They arrive by wagon, buggy, flatbed and panel truck. The larger vehicles with the biggest lots line up outside. Their goods will be sold first via the drive-through.

Next to be sold will be large lots - 10 boxes or more - sitting on those pallets lined up in the auction house. Following those will be smaller lots of four boxes or more, and at the end, the small or partial lots are sold.

"We have something for everyone," Henry Stauffer said. "Some big buyers stay all day and buy the small lots at the end. There's quality produce in those small lots if they want to stay."

The general public is welcome to bid and buy at this auction house. It is great for those who have a need for large numbers (more than six) of produce, bedding plants or shrubs.

Henry Stauffer's wife, Alma, helped by their daughter, Evelyn, grows flowers for auction. This day, she is arranging bunches of celosia, a sun-loving annual. Her blooms were tightly furled flowers rich in colors of ruby and gold. She starts her plants from seed in February and coaxes them along until they reach the tall height preferred by florists.

Nearby, huge hibiscus plants are nestled on a pallet. Pots of hanging plants with wine-colored foliage swing from a rod. Below these, several prospective buyers are examining a pallet of glossy green peppers and deep purple eggplant. Working his way down that row, Walters' amplified voice keeps the bidding racing along.

The idea of a produce auction in St. Mary's County percolated among Mennonite farmers for several years. The nearest auction had been at Cheltenham, Md., in Prince George's County. Food brokers were even farther away. For the Mennonites and the Amish, transporting their produce that far posed a problem. They had to hire truckers and that cut into profits. So in 2004, when they heard that there would be a meeting in Harrisonburg organized by Mennonites who were also interested in starting a produce auction, they went, driven by Donna Sasscer, agriculture and seafood manager for St. Mary's County, and Ben Beale, co-director of St. Mary's County Cooperative Extension.

On their return, the Mennonites decided to proceed. That meant scouting a location, acquiring property, raising money for a building and persuading county government officials to approve their plans for a site in Loveville. Sasscer, Beale and the late Denis Canavan, then the director of Land Use and Growth Management for St. Mary's County, worked with the group to complete the permit process. Sasscer and Beale continue to assist the group, chaired by Elmer Brubacher, with marketing, publicity and compliance with regulations. Beale also helps on the production side, bringing University of Maryland knowledge to the growers when they're having problems with crops because of weather, insects and diseases, or when they'd benefit from hearing about new crop varieties and cultivation methods.

Walters is down to the small stuff now and the long building is emptying out. It's been another good day for what has turned out to be a very good idea.

About the Loveville Produce Auction

For more information on the Loveville Produce Auction, visit http://stmarys.umd.edu/AGNR/Loveville%20Produce%20Auction/ or check out the auction at 40454 Bishop Road in Loveville. A buyer/seller number must be obtained before bidding or selling. Auction sales are scheduled every Monday beginning at 11 a.m. and on Wednesdays and Fridays at 9 a.m. Schedule varies by season.

Special auctions beginning at 9 a.m.:
Spring into Spring Home Auction -- May
Home & Harvest Auction -- September