2024 Grower Outlook: Chuck Tryon of Bushel Boy Farms
March 11, 2024 
Chuck Tryon
In our 2024 “Grower Outlook” series, we’re talking to greenhouse produce operations about their biggest challenges, achievements and plans for 2024. CEAg World interviewed Chuck Tryon, President of Bushel Boy Farms, with 2.09 million square feet on a 48-acre operation in the U.S. specializing in tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries.
CEAg World: Could you talk about Bushel Boy Farms’ largest achievements in 2023, and could you say how you plan to build upon those in 2024?
Chuck Tryon: The largest achievement in 2023 was really around product innovation and expansion. And to put it into context, for the first 30 years of the company’s history, it was entirely a fresh tomato producer. But we started expanding that by growing strawberries back in 2021, but even with that, the year before last, tomatoes made up over 97% of our volume. Last year, we increased the non-tomato portion of that [significantly]; we expanded into cucumbers, continued to expand strawberries. So, last year, non-tomato categories made up 13% of our total sales. It’s a big jump in just 12 months’ time. This year, we are on pace to have close to 20% of our volume coming from non-tomato product categories. That is what we are going to continue. Our focus is to really find out how we can bring solutions, new products, to our best customers beyond tomatoes to see where we can add this value as a year-round, local producer in the Midwest.
CEAg World: Are there other crops in addition to tomatoes, strawberries, and cucumbers?
Chuck Tryon: There are others. We did our first trial this past year of mini sweet peppers. We’re looking to continue that category, other peppers, potentially. We’re looking at other berries, soft fruits, but really, the innovation pipeline has a lot of categories in it. The ones that will really see the markets in the next 12 to 24 months would really be around those peppers and then potentially some of the additional berry types, like blackberries and raspberries.
CEAg World: Are there any other big goals for 2024 that you’re looking forward to?
Chuck Tryon: I’d say that the biggest piece for us—it’s two-fold. One is really the continued focus on product quality and service to our customers. There’s been, over the past few years, a lot of quality and service interruptions in the industry. And we’re really focused on producing the best-quality products and then being a reliable supplier for our best customers. That’s the one big piece there. The second is to invest in our people. This is, at the end of the day—and we’ll talk a little bit about innovation—there are a lot of cool things happening technology-wise, but this is a people business. This is work that requires talented workers at all levels—happy, productive workers at all levels—and investing and focusing on all that is a key for us this year.
CEAg World: What do you foresee as the largest challenges this year and plans to deal with those?
Chuck Tryon: It hits on two sides of the same coin. One is inflation that impacts us as it relates to labor and energy costs. Those are the largest components of our cost structure. So, the continuing increase in labor costs, the continued increase in energy prices, is a significant challenge for us. At the same time, overall economic conditions in our region—even though inflation is slowing down, food inflation is still a concern for our consumers. So, trying to balance those cost increases that we see and have that not translate into a significant impact in the prices that our consumers pay for all of their groceries when they’re in the store—it’s a really tough balance to have there. The way we’re approaching that is we’ve got to have a relentless focus on productivity, so yields out of the greenhouse, managing our costs as best we can, and then optimizing our pricing to our best customers.
CEAg World: As far as technology, could you talk about some innovations that you’ve either recently implemented or plan to this year?
Chuck Tryon: We’ve got two that we’re really excited about. We’ve been working really closely with what we believe are some state-of-the-art industry partners. One is around a tomato imaging system, where we can monitor the crops in their development very closely and get really good insight into crop and plant development. We’re working with the company by the name of IUNU and worked with them to help develop their technology and implement that in vine crops like tomatoes, which is being deployed as we speak. We’re really excited about that. The second—we’re the first greenhouse in the U.S. to implement a new greenhouse sanitation protocol, specifically in relationship and response to the brown rugose virus that the industry has been battling. We worked with a company known as Rosmar USA to implement the new sanitation protocol, so it includes new processes, new products, to clean and sanitize with, new testing methods for testing a greenhouse as you go through different crop cycles. Those two technologies and innovations we’re bringing in to really help us improve our growing practices, and to the earlier point, really help us deliver much higher yields, which is the key to us managing our cost structure.
CEAg World: Are those innovations being implemented throughout the locations in Mason City and Owatonna in Minnesota, USA?
Chuck Tryon: Yep, exactly. We’re doing them at both sites, so again, really excited. It’s the most excited I’ve seen our greenhouse growing team since I’ve joined. It’s exciting for them to be on the cutting edge of these new technologies and working really closely with these talented partners of ours.
CEAg World: Personally, what are you most excited about this year?
Chuck Tryon: What I’m personally excited for are the results that we’re seeing when all these things come together, so this focus on productivity, innovation, care for our people and their development, and then a relentless focus and appreciation of our customers. When all those things start to come together, we’re seeing the results, and it’s an exciting time for us because of that.