Special delivery: fresh Georgia peaches to Fremont

FREMONT – Stephen Rose grew up on the family peach farm in Georgia, eating sweet peaches he picked from the trees.

When Rose moved to Nashville, Tennessee, peaches he bought there just weren't very good — at least compared to those on the farm.

So he decided to bring peaches from his family's farm — Pearson Farm, the oldest peach farm in Georgia — to Nashville. When he and his wife sold 10 tons of peaches from their truck on weekends, they realized there was high demand for fresh Georgia peaches.

They started The Peach Truck in 2012, and it delivers fresh Pearson Farm peaches to communities across Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. The truck stopped at the Tractor Supply Co. in Fremont on Thursday morning and will be back July 23.

"We want people to experience these," tour director Rick Haley said. "Other than them going through an orchard and pulling (a peach) off the tree, they aren't going to get one fresher."

The peaches are sold on the truck 24 to 48 hours after they have been picked, Haley said. Grocery store peaches often are picked at least a month before they make it to the store, he said.

A steady stream of people stopped at The Peach Truck in the store's parking lot and bought cases of the peaches. Some also bought bags of pecans, which also come from Pearson Farm.

Fremont was actually a slower stop for the truck, which has had lines of up to 250 people waiting to buy their wares at other places, Haley said. The peaches it sells are freestone peaches, which are popular for canning and freezing, he said.

The truck makes three stops a day and was headed to Sandusky and Mansfield after Fremont on Thursday. Haley runs the Ohio and Indiana tour, and the Tennessee and Kentucky tour runs simultaneously.

The Peach Truck added Indiana to the tour this year, Haley said. It will stop in 108 cities this year, compared with 32 in 2013.

"We've had to go to a bigger truck," Haley said. "We're in full semis now."

Haley and his team love seeing people experience eating the fresh peaches. Some have said it reminds them of childhood memories.

"I never realized that peaches are such an emotional food," he said. "I have people who say it's the taste of summertime. It takes them back to a simpler time, when they were little."

Hearing an elderly person say the Pearson Farm peach is the best he or she has ever eaten is special, too, he said.

"This is a fun job," he said. "You meet great people."

mksmith@gannett.com

419-334-1044

Twitter: @kristinasmithNM

The Peach Truck

The Peach Truck will returning to Fremont and the region on July 23. Its schedule is:

• 8 to 9:30 a.m.: Tractor Supply Co., 3801 W. State St., Fremont.

• 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: Corso's Garden Center, Sandusky.

• 2:30 to 4 p.m.: Tractor Supply Co., Mansfield.