Mt. Olive Pickle Company facts for kids
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| Private | |
| Industry | Food processing |
| Founded | 1926 |
| Founder | Shikrey Baddour and George Moore |
| Headquarters | Mount Olive, North Carolina, United States |
| Products | pickled cucumbers, mixed pickle, relish, and other pickled products |
The Mount Olive Pickle Company is a famous American company. It's located in Mount Olive, North Carolina. They are best known for making pickled cucumbers, also called pickles! But they also make other yummy pickled foods like peppers, mixed pickles, and relish.
Mt. Olive is the biggest independent pickle company in the whole United States. In the southeastern part of the country, almost 70% of all pickles sold are from Mt. Olive! All their factories and offices are in Mount Olive. They cover a huge area, about 110 acres, which is like 80 football fields!
They have over 1,200 big tanks called 'brining vats.' These tanks can hold more than 40 million pounds of cucumbers! The company employs over 500 people. During the summer, when they get lots of cucumbers, this number grows to over 800 workers.
In 1943, Mt. Olive was one of the first companies to share its profits with employees. This was a very new idea back then! In 1959, they started a special fund to help their local community. This fund also gives scholarships to the children of their employees. Each school year, four students get $1,500 each for their education.
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How Mt. Olive Pickles Started
In the 1920s, a man named Shikrey Baddour saw a problem. Farmers near Goldsboro had lots of cucumbers that went to waste. Shikrey had a great idea! He thought about buying these cucumbers. Then, he would put them in salty water, called brine. This would turn them into "brine stock."
He planned to sell this brine stock to other pickle companies. Shikrey asked George Moore to help him. George was a sailor who knew about pickle plants. But their first plan didn't work out. They couldn't find anyone to buy their brine stock!
Building the Company in 1926
By January 1926, a new plan came together. A group of business people from Mount Olive helped. Headley Morris Cox led this group. They officially started the Mt. Olive Pickle Company, Inc. Their goal was to make and sell their own pickles.
Thirty-seven people invested $19,000 to get the company going. Everyone saw it as a "community project." Many of today's owners are grandchildren of those first investors. The company hired H.M. Cox as President. George Moore became the factory boss. Shikrey Baddour was the salesman.
The company bought one acre of land from farmer J.A. Westbrook for $1,000. This land is still part of their factory today. Westbrook's old home is still across from the plant. By 1942, Mt. Olive's sales reached over $500,000. In 1947, sales grew to more than $1 million a year!
Discovering Pickle Secrets
In 1973, scientists at Mt. Olive made an important discovery. They worked with researchers from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). They found a big secret about how pickles ferment. Fermentation is the process that turns cucumbers into pickles.
They learned that a tiny germ, called L. plantarum, is super important for fermentation. They also found that removing carbon dioxide gas from the brine with nitrogen gas helped a lot. This stopped the pickles from rotting and reduced waste.
In 1986, Mt. Olive Pickle helped start the North Carolina Pickle Festival. This is a fun event for everyone! By 2005, the Mt. Olive factory had grown very large. It covered over 970,000 square feet of space. In 2008, the company started selling pickles in single-serve packs. These are perfect for workers and schoolchildren to take with them!
The Fun Pickle Drop Event
On December 31, 1999, the Mt. Olive Pickle Company started a new tradition. They held their first New Year's Eve "pickle drop"! A glowing green pickle, about 3 feet tall, is lowered on a flagpole. This happens at 7 o'clock in the evening. This time is midnight in Greenwich Mean Time, which is a famous time zone.
Guests at the event get fun hats, noisemakers, and yummy treats. They can enjoy cookies, hot chocolate, and of course, pickles! This event has become a yearly tradition. It's a source of pride for the Mount Olive community. It also helps the Food Bank of North Carolina. Guests bring canned goods as donations to help others. The Pickle Drop celebrated its 20th anniversary on December 31, 2019.
