The world is far from peachy keen right now, but Stephen and Jessica Rose are trying to make it better.
The Nashville couple runs The Peach Truck, a roving business that delivers the famous Georgia fruit to more than 400 locations in 11 states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania.
For the fourth summer in a row, the truck will make stops in Pittsburgh — this year on June 28, July 19 and August 4 in multiple locations.
The truck will be stationed at farmers’ markets and hardware stores in Allison Park, Mt. Lebanon, Ambridge, Baldwin, Cuddy, Natrona Heights and Washington, PA. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, you must pre-order your peaches. Hurry — two of the locations are already sold out.
The sweet treats are hand-picked when tree-ripe and immediately cleaned, graded and packed into half bushels. They travel on refrigerated trucks to scheduled tour stops, where they’re sold within hours of being picked by the 25-pound box.
From mid-May to mid-August, Georgia peach farms cultivate more than 40 varieties, such as Elberta, Flavorich, Fiesta Gem, Harvester and Flame Prince.
Stephen Rose doesn’t play favorites; he says the best peach is the one in your hand.
He grew up in Fort Valley, Ga., smack dab in the middle of the Peach State. The area has mineral-rich red clay, cold winters and hot summers, which provides ideal growing conditions for peaches.
In addition to fresh fruit, The Peach Truck sells pecans, jam, peach cobbler filling, BBQ sauce and peach salsa. You can also pick up a copy of “The Peach Truck Cookbook.”
“As more and more Nashville customers tried The Peach Truck’s fresh Georgia peaches, we heard time and time again of how it elicited an emotional reaction — taking them back to a special time or memory when they had enjoyed a peach in the past,” Stephen says. “People started asking how they could get peaches outside of Nashville and outside of Georgia, so we started thinking, and The Peach Truck Tour was born.”