Family Business
Heppell’s Potato Corp. is in its 8th year of business it is owned and operated by Wes Heppell and Peter Schouten. We are a family farm that employs 9 full time employees as well as many seasonal employees. The farm has been in the Cloverdale area for 4 generations and has recently expanded its operations to include land in the sumas prairie.
Farm Fresh Since 1920
Total acreage farmed at H.P.C. is 600 acres and it is divided up as follows:
- 133 acres forage corn
- 50 acres carrots
- 20 acres pumpkins
- 375 acres potatoes
- 15 acres squash
- 7 acres parsnips
H.P.C. also rotates land with its neighbors for crop rotation.
Our Potatoes
The 350 acres of potatoes is comprised of several varieties and 2 different methods of planting. The bulk of the crop is grown conventionally in traditional potato hills, but there is a growing portion of our cop that is planted in beds. The reason for this is a growing market for nuggets.
Approximately 150 acres of our crop is intended for the nugget market and the varieties that we grow for that are in three categories:
Our Red varieties are: Redsun and Calred
Our whte varieties are: Warba, Norchip, and Rocket
Our yellow varieties are: Yukon Gold, Sieglinde, and Sante
Our season begins early because we want our potatoes to get a good start and be on the market early. We begin preparing the fields in late January or early February and usually are planting March 1,good potatoes come from good seed so all our seed is certified. In a good year the days from planting to harvesting on our nugget crops can be as low as 65 days. The harvest usually begins the last week of May but can vary depending on the weather.
Harvesting methods have changed a lot since this farm began in the early nineteen hundreds. We now have mostly mechanical harvesting and special equipment especially designed for the gentle harvesting of our conventional and nugget crops. All potatoes are washed and packed at our packhouse in Cloverdale and from there distributed fresh through Lower Mainland Veg. Distributors Inc. Of which H.P.C. is a shareholder.
