Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 7234 S G M A G A Z I N E | FA L L 2 0 1 6 B U S I N E S S + C U LT U R E 35 We’ve had an excellent cooperative relationship over the years. Those partnerships have helped us meet our objectives of doing business profitably. It has also been beneficial in terms of employment. – Jody Beasley profitably. It has also been beneficial in terms of employment.” One of Valdosta-Lowndes County’s oldest industries is South Georgia Pecan, which began in 1913 and was incorporated in 1926. A family-owned company, South Georgia Pecan has four plants located off West Hill Avenue (U.S. Highway 84) with approximately 800,000 square feet of production space for processing raw materials (pecans, almonds, and walnuts). “Having our main facility in South Georgia offers us the ability to be centralized to the supply of raw materials,” said South Georgia Pecan Vice President Jeff Worn. “The Valdosta-Lowndes County Development Authority has done a lot for us from the standpoint of tax abatements and tax credits.” Worn explains that South Georgia Pecans’ primary focus is the commodities side of the business, which includes supplying raw materials both domestically and internationally. “This is what puts food on the table,” Worn said. “This is what we are good at doing. We read the raw material markets for pecans, almonds, and walnuts, then process and distribute very large quantities very effectively.” To expand its domestic service region, South Georgia Pecan recently opened a processing facility in El Paso, Texas. “We built an 80,000-square-foot building in El Paso because this is the other region that will make us most centralized to major suppliers of pecans in both the Southwest and Midwest,” Worn said. “We can read the markets and understand what is going on with pecan production in South Africa and Mexico. We can then forecast carryover volumes from year-to-year, see what future crop productions will look like, and structure our procurement and sales strategies.” The distribution of the raw materials is one side of South Georgia Pecans market strategy; however, developing what Worn describes as “value-added” products is quickly becoming an extension of the company’s growth. “We are definitely trying to take the commodity side of our business and cut out a bigger piece of the pie for more value-added products,” Worn said. “We have started making pecan butter and have several flavors that will be out soon. We are also working on developing pecan milk and pecan flour and pecan oil, and we are introducing a Paleo nut cluster under our Golden Tree brand this year.” Worn cautions that developing new products takes time and requires extensive market research. “With the value-added products like Paleo nut clusters, pecan butter, flour, oil or milk, I am not shipping a pecan piece or half, I am turning the pecan into something else and that something should be different from what anyone else is producing on the market,” Worn explains. “It has to be better than anything else in the market, and if I am not doing something different, then I don’t need to be doing it.”