Kumquat Growers Inc. packing house will have an open house the day before the annual festival.
By CHASE SQUIRES
Published January 29, 2004
[Times photo: Lance A. Rothstein]
The hands of Vanessa Gude gather kumquats at the Kumquat Growers Inc. packing house in St. Joseph on Wednesday. The fruit be given away during the Kumquat Festival in Dade City this weekend. Kumquats from St. Joseph make their way up the East Coast, into Canada, and sometimes as far as Europe.
ST. JOSEPH - On Friday, doors at the little packing house on the hill will open to visitors, showcasing decades of history, generations of labor and boxes and boxes of kumquats.
For the first time, the Kumquat Growers Inc. packing house will have an open house on the day before Dade City's annual Kumquat Festival. At the virtual epicenter of the kumquat world, the fabled "Kumquat Capital of the World," visitors can view the process every kumquat undergoes on its way to market, from the tree to the shipping pallet.
For the Gude family (pronounced Goo-dee) and the Neuhofers, kumquat packing is a life's work. All around the little packing house along Gude Road, kumquat trees are dotted with the ripe fruit. Most of the 22.5 tons of fruit that will cross the loading docks each year comes from hilltop acres in the St. Joseph community.
It started, Frank Gude said, around 1900, when a St. Joseph farmer named Christopher Nathe obtained a new Chinese import, a kumquat tree, and planted it for decoration in his yard. He found the fruit was perfect for marmalade, and he began sharing it with friends.
Within a few years, Gude said, Nathe had planted an acre and was making a profit. Shortly after, neighbors joined in.
"Just about all of the fruit from around here, that comes through here, is from that one plant," Gude said. "It goes that far back."
On the tour, visitors can see how kumquat shoots are grafted to a hardy root stock. It takes two years for a tree to produce fruit, and about five years before it makes enough fruit to turn a profit.
For Gude, 74, the operation has been a family affair. He and his wife, Rosemary, have seven sons. They toiled at outside jobs while they farmed, and they joined with neighbors to create the Kumquat Growers packing cooperative in 1971.
Gude recalled working full days in the physical plant at Pasco-Hernando Community College, while his wife tended the kumquats, then coming home and going to work on the groves.
His son, Greg, works alongside him now, when he's not on duty as a captain with Pasco County Fire Rescue.
Touring the compact packing house, Greg Gude explained how he and his family helped invent the machinery needed for the business. The kumquat growing world is so small, no industry-specific machinery existed, so anything the family needed had to be custom built.
An automated fruit washer was a big help, he said. The sizer, which separates small from large kumquats, is new this year.
The fruit from St. Joseph makes its way up the East Coast, into Canada, and sometimes as far as Europe in a variety of containers, from clear plastic boxes to big cardboard boxes, usually fresh, but sometimes packed in brine. The fruit shows up in everything from pies to body lotion, salads, cakes, sauces and chutney.
On the Wednesday before the weekend's Kumquat Festival, Maribel Gude and her niece, Vanessa Gude, were busy packing kumquats into mesh bags. In the front office, Franchone Gude and Margie Neuhofer were showing off fresh pies and cookies, full of sweet kumquats.
The fruit has a powerful, citrus flavor. It can be eaten whole, peel and all, or chopped or pureed for mixing.
"One thing about this business, we've always been flexible," Greg Gude said. "We're always willing to try new things, and there's always so much you can do with kumquats."
If you go
The Kumquat Growers open house runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday at the packing house, 31647 Gude Road, St. Joseph. To get there from Dade City, take St. Joe Road west to Scharber Road, then south a half mile to Gude Road. Admission is free. For recipes and information on kumquats, view the Web site at www.kumquatgrowers.com
