Final Call for Peaches! Here’s One Way to Get Your Fill

The husband-wife duo – and team behind Nashville’s wildly popular The Peach Truck – has been transporting peaches all over the South for five years. But the couple stepped up their game in 2013 with the Farm to Porch program, which allows residents of 46 states (excluding Alaska, Arizona, California, and Hawaii) to order a box of Georgia’s finest and have it delivered straight to their stoop. “I love that we can help folks get through a peach-less summer,” Stephen says.

Since launching as a grassroots effort in 2012 and partnering with the family-owned Pearson Farm in Stephen’s hometown of Fort Valley, Georgia, the Roses have become one of Nashville’s most successful food enterprises. To share peaches with the masses, they haul their colorful bounty up to Music City in the bed of an 1964 Jeep pick-up truck.

“It was a super simple vision from the start: I wanted to eat great peaches, and I was sure other people would like them, as well,” Stephen says. “We went over to [clothing store] Imogene + Willie and asked if we could park in front of their shop. They loved the idea, and we started nights and weekends selling peaches out of the back of the truck.”

Since those humble beginnings, the Roses now employ 50 seasonal workers who distribute the fruit at various stands around Middle Tennessee and dole them out to the patient patrons lining up on each stop of The Peach Truck’s annual Freestone Tour – which also visits Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana.

The concept of simplistic roadside stands came about through the Roses’ extensive travels abroad through India. “There are roadside fruit vendors everywhere there,” Stephen says. “It’s one of the oldest businesses. And our simple, ‘let’s get peaches fresh off the tree to as many people as possible’ has really struck a chord with folks.”

Collin Fatke / Courtesy of the Peach Truck

Collin Fatke / Courtesy of the Peach Truck

So what’s so different about a Peach Truck product versus the one you might find on a grocery store shelf? On top of Pearson Farms’ impressive longevity in the farming world – they’ve been growing on the same land for five generations – Stephen says it’s all in the timing from when the peach leaves the tree until a customer takes a big, juicy bite.

“A lot of stores want a peach that has a long shelf life, so they ask the farmer to pick it before it’s ripe. We want a peach that’s ripe because we’re going to get it to the customer within a couple days,” he explains. “So they don’t have to pick peaches early; they’re able to pick the ripe peach, and they’re able to grow them in a way that peaches should be grown.”

Peaches are, as Jessica describes, a “very high maintenance” commodity. As such, the Roses take meticulous care with every piece of the stone fruit that’s plucked from its Georgia home and sent on its way across the country. “A peach cannot have any machines touch it, because they’ll just ruin it. It’s hundreds of people’s hands that do everything,” she says. “The thought and care that goes into it – every little thing matters.”

Jessica adds that every single peach that goes out over the course of the 13-week season (from May through August) has been carefully examined by her, Stephen, or their director of operations, Justin Rearden. “We talk about: Where has this been? What’s happening? How long has it been out? Has it been conditioned?” she says, referring to the ripening process. “Peaches can cause a lot of headaches. It feels good that we’re doing something really difficult.”

While this year’s 126-stop Freestone Tour ends this Saturday and won’t start up again until next June, The Peach Truck will continue to sell via its Nashville locations through August 7.