Altered auction

Tri-County Cooperative produce market adapts to the times

Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
EAST WINDSOR — Fred Schieferstein travels about 40 miles from Clark about twice a week to buy goods for his produce market at the Tri-County Cooperative Auction on Route 33.
    “In a nutshell, there’s a very good selection of freshly grown Jersey fruits and vegetables. There’s a very good variety, the quality is high, and the price is very fair,” he said, explaining his long trips.
    James Durr of North Hanover said he began selling at the market when he began growing vegetables and fall ornamentals on his 1,200-acre farm. “There’s been a fall market that’s sort of evolved here over the years,” he said. “The busiest time for this market is late September and October, before Halloween.”
    Nonetheless, a lot has changed, according to Millstone farmer Pete Nurko, who sells watermelons here.
    “There used to be 50 buyers and 50 to 100 sellers at one time,” he said. “We’d be backed up to the highway.”
    Mr. Nurko, 57 has been coming to the auction since he was 12 years old, and said his family has attended since the market opened in 1931.
    “What basically happened was most farmers sold out” since then, he said. “So you don’t have a big supply of produce here, and so you have no buyers coming. It’s like a pendulum.”
    Run by the Tri-County Cooperative Auction Market Association, the venue officially serves Mercer, Monmouth, and Burlington counties, though often Middlesex as well, with auctions at 7 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
    Auction manager Pegi Ballister-Howells said nowadays the sale draws farmers from throughout the state.
    But even with its increased reach, the auction has shrunk since its opening. The co-op once sold livestock and eggs in addition to the fruit and vegetables it still offers in bulk, and it now uses only the two largest of its six warehouses at 619 Route 33, as well as the office building. Ms. Ballister-Howells, who started her job in March, says she hopes to see the site undergo a major renovation and put some of the other buildings back in use.
    The auction is apparently one of only three remaining in the state, with the other two farther south, in Vineland and Swedesboro. Despite its decline, which many agreed parallels the problems of the state’s farming industry, Tri-County offers produce at prices considerably lower than those at supermarkets.
    About 15 people sat in the stands on Sept. 15, when a 25-pound box of large tomatoes could be had for $12. That equates to 48 cents a pound, as compared to $2.49 per pound at the Superfresh on Route 130. Meanwhile, one seller struggled to get $150 for 50 or so pumpkins, which the buyer said would later be resold for $20 a piece.
    “Shameful!” declared auctioneer Alfred Finocchiaro in the process of the sale. “I thought capitalism was alive and well in this country!”
    Mr. Finocchiaro, 50, of Monroe, has been a fixture here for most of the years since 1981, even managing the enterprise for 10 of them.
    “The bank was going to take it over, so I made a deal with them to run the place and breathe some life back into it,” he said. “I basically made it my life’s work to keep that place going.”
    Like many others interviewed, he said a major reason the auction has shrunk is that a number of farms in the area have been sold and turned into residential properties, driving farmers into other states or into retirement.
    Many “jobbers,” or wholesalers, have been cut out of the process as the number of markets and farmers has declined. In his time here, Mr. Finocchiaro said, the volume of produce going through the auction has gone down, as has the length of the season.
    “We used to start in May and went past Thanksgiving, but the market’s changed,” he said, and now runs July through October.
    Certain crops, like strawberries and bedding flowers, have dwindled at the market. But Tri-County has many other plants available in abundance. Recent nights have seen sales of all types, including tomatoes, corn, pumpkins, and numerous other beans, melons and gourds.
    Mr. Durr, a large-scale, modern farmer, is an uncommon sight at the auction, which he has been attending for about 12 years. He said he thought the market was doing better this year than last in terms of total sales, which Ms. Ballister-Howells said grossed more than $500,000 in 2007.
    He estimated selling 7 or 8 percent of his farm’s gross at the auction this year. “The haven’t been enough buyers,” he said, “but the market in general has been a little better.”
    Tri-County president George Asprocolas, who farms off of Nurko Road in Millstone, said most of those who sell at the market are “old-time farmers” who need an outlet. Most of the buyers, he continued, are “mom-and-pop stands,” as well as a few restaurants. Other sellers interviewed said their clientele consists mainly of farmers’ markets and those who distribute to them.
    In July, Tri-County introduced direct sales that precede the auction in an effort to boost sales and tap into the “buy-local” movement. Anyone looking for a box of produce can come to the auction site between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to purchase boxes directly from the farmers.
    Mr. Finocchiaro said he has seen signs that “buy-local” interest is on the rise, and Ms. Ballister-Howells said she is looking into ways to gain that demographic.
    Lamenting the fact he could not change things more in his tenure as manager, Mr. Finocchiaro said he still hopes to see the auction converted into a terminal market.
    “If the market’s going to survive, it’s going to have to change things,” he said.
    The Tri-County Cooperative Auction Market can be reached at 609-448-0193 and is located at 619 Route 33 in East Windsor, behind Precious Pets and Global Ag.