BAKERSFIELD, CA - Welcome to the latest Behind the Greens, featuring the Bako Sweet® team and its operations! Meet the team in this brief but insightful video.

Mike Valpredo, President, Country Sweet Produce and Bako Sweet®

"We are here in early November in one of our sweet potato fields. We are south of Bakersfield, [California,] and it is a glorious day to harvest sweet potatoes. We will harvest for about four months."

"We start in early August, we want a hot dry summer, which we certainly get here in Bakersfield. And we want it to stay nice and start to taper off in those temperatures September/October, and the goal is to always be finished right around Thanksgiving, before the weather starts to turn and we get rain, and that's all we can ask for."

Matt McCort, Chief Operating Officer, Bako Sweet®

"We plant, grow, and pack everything down to the acre for our retail partners. So the great thing about partnering with Bako Sweet is that you can literally go see your potatoes in the ground. We have a great crop this year, highest quality we've had in a while. Our yield is maybe 5–10 percent above average, but we're looking forward to a strong season. We got product coming from both Kern County and Merced County. We got all varieties available both conventionally and organically."

Bailey Slayton, Sales Account Manager, Bako Sweet®

"We have some brand-new display bins that are perfect for stores, especially around this time of year. They're bright vibrant colors really eye-catching for our shoppers. All of our SKUs are very convenient grab-and-go items. Makes it really easy to cook sweet potatoes for any meal and its just a great opportunity for the holidays."

Susan Noritake, Director of Sales, Bako Sweet®

"We're just in front of Thanksgiving, which is a big kickoff for sweet potatoes. So going into Februrary, we're excited about National Heart Health Month and National Sweet Potato Month. We have custom shippers that we're designing, and we're working with our retail partners to really do a big promotion during that time period, which will be the first time for us. From there, we are going into Easter, which is also a great time for sweet potatoes and then into our grilling campaigns for memorial day in the summer."

We are looking to make sweet potatoes part of consumers part of everyday life and so they can enjoy this healthy vegetable throughout the year.

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Bako Sweet®