The Mount Olive Pickle Company is an American food processing company located in

Mount Olive, North Carolina Mount Olive is a town in Duplin and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 4,589 at the 2010 census. It is included in the Goldsboro, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town is home to the Mt. Ol ...

. The company's primary product is

pickled cucumber A pickled cucumber (commonly known as a pickle in the United States and Canada and a gherkin in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand) is a usually small or miniature cucumber that has been pickled in a brine, vinegar ...

s, but it is also a large supplier of pepper, mixed pickle,

relish A relish is a cooked and pickled product made of chopped vegetables, fruits or herbs and is a food item typically used as a condiment to enhance a staple. Examples are chutneys and the North American relish, a pickled cucumber jam eaten with ho ...

, and other

pickled Pickling is the process of preserving or extending the shelf life of food by either anaerobic fermentation in brine or immersion in vinegar. The pickling procedure typically affects the food's texture and flavor. The resulting food is called ...

products. Mt. Olive is the largest independent pickle company in the United States and the top-selling pickle brand in the

Southeastern United States The Southeastern United States, also referred to as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical region of the United States. It is located broadly on the eastern portion of the southern United States and the southern por ...

, where its market share approaches 70 percent.Mohan, "Mt. Olive Packs and Prints Pickles and Peppers," ''Packaging Digest,'' September 2005. Facilities are all located in Mt. Olive on with of production, office, and warehouse space. The company has in excess of 1,200 brining vats and can store over of cucumbers. The company employs over 500 people which swells to over 800 during the busiest intake season each summer. In 1943, the company was one of the first in the country to offer profit sharing plans to their employees. In 1959, Mt. Olive established an employee community fund that helped support local community organizations. The Mt. Olive community fund also awards scholarships to employees' children. Each school year the company's community fund awards four scholarships for four different students at $1,500 each.

History

In the mid-1920s, Shikrey Baddour, a Lebanese immigrant from nearby Goldsboro, first saw opportunity in the wasted cucumber crops of area farmers. Baddour came up with the idea of buying the cucumbers, putting them in a brining tank, and selling the brined cucumbers, or brine stock, to other pickle firms. Baddour enlisted the aid of George Moore, a sailor from Wilmington who had worked in a Castle Hayne pickle plant. The plan didn't work the way they had envisioned, however: they had no buyers for their product. By January 1926, a new plan was put into place through the efforts of a group of Mount Olive business people, led by Headley Morris Cox, who formally established the Mt. Olive Pickle Company, Inc. to pack and sell its own pickles. Thirty-seven original shareholders put forward $19,000 in capital to get the company started in what all viewed as a "community proposition." Many of today's stockholders are grandchildren and great grandchildren of the charter stockholders. The board of directors hired H.M. Cox as President, Moore as factory superintendent and Baddour as salesman and gave them each shares of stock for their initial investments. The board also purchased of land from farmer J.A. Westbrook for $1,000. The land is part of the current manufacturing site today. Westbrook's home still stands across from the plant. Mt. Olive surpassed $500,000 in sales in 1942. The company initiated a profit-sharing plan in 1943 and by 1947 its sales reached more than $1 million a year. In 1973, Mt. Olive food scientists, working in cooperation with researchers from the

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

(USDA), discovered one of the secrets of fermentation. The Mt. Olive and USDA researchers discovered that the

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...

'' L. plantarum'' was key to the fermentation process, and that purging

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is trans ...

from brine with

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

led to minimal rot and waste. In 1986, Mt. Olive Pickle co-founded the North Carolina Pickle Festival. In 2005, the Mt. Olive plant had expanded to take up more than of production space covering . In 2008, the company introduced the first single-pack pickles. The intended markets are workers and schoolchildren.

Pickle drop

On December 31, 1999, the Mt. Olive Pickle Company held the first New Year's Eve "pickle drop", in which a glowing green -high pickle is lowered on a flagpole at 7 o'clock EST (midnight

Greenwich Mean Time Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a con ...

). Guests are provided with hats, noisemakers, and refreshments including cookies, hot chocolate and pickles. The event has turned into an annual occurrence and a source of pride for the community and also benefits the Food Bank of North Carolina through donations of canned goods from guests. The Pickle Drop had its 20th anniversary on December 31, 2019.

Controversy

In October 1998, the

Farm Labor Organizing Committee The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) is a labor union representing migrant farm workers in the Midwestern United States and North Carolina. History FLOC was founded in Toledo, Ohio, in 1967 by Baldemar Velasquez.Barger and Reza, ''The Farm ...

(FLOC), a

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

, announced a boycott of Mt. Olive Pickle Company. The union targeted the pickle processor because it believed that growers would not raise wages unless Mount Olive agreed to pay more for growers' cucumbers. The union's five-year boycott of Mt. Olive Pickle was ultimately successful. In September 2004, FLOC signed a collective bargaining agreement with Mt. Olive and the growers. More than 6,000 of the state's 10,000

guest worker Foreign workers or guest workers are people who work in a country other than one of which they are a citizen. Some foreign workers use a guest worker program in a country with more preferred job prospects than in their home country. Guest worker ...

s joined FLOC. More than 1,000 growers agreed to form the North Carolina Growers Association to act as the employers' collective bargaining agent. The Association covered a number of cash crops, such as Christmas trees and tobacco, in addition to cucumbers. In February 2017, according to a consent agreement, the EPA fined the Mt. Olive Pickle Company $131,856 for violating the Clean Water Act over a quarter-century. Mt. Olive was discharging water with extremely high levels of chloride, ammonia and/or nitrogen.

Notes

References

*“20th Annual Mt. Olive's New Year Pickle Drop.” ''Www.visitnc.com'', www.visitnc.com/event/XvGX/20th-annual-mt-olive-s-new-year-pickle-drop. *Carmen, Barbara. "Organizer of Union for Migrant Workers Takes on Pickle Giant." ''Columbus Dispatch.'' January 24, 1999. *Etchells, J.L.; Fleming, H.P.; Hontz, L.H.; Bell, T.A.; and Monroe, R.J. "Factors Influencing Bloater Formation in Brined Cucumbers During Controlled Fermentation." ''Journal of Food Science.'' 40:3 (1975). *Feehan, Jennifer. "FLOC Claims Victory in North Carolina Arrest Case." ''Toledo Blade.'' August 15, 1998. *Franklin, Stephen. "Farm Workers' Group Pushes for Better Pay, Rights." ''Chicago Tribune.'' April 8, 2006. *Greenhouse, Steven. "North Carolina Growers' Group Signs Union Contract for Mexican Workers." ''New York Times.'' September 17, 2004. *''Growing An American Tradition: Mt. Olive Pickle Company: 80 Years.'' Mt. Olive, N.C.: Mt. Olive Pickle Co., 2006. *Kornegay Jr., George R. "Creating Public-Private Partnerships to Develop Rural and Small Town Infrastructure: USDA RURAL DEVELOPMENT Rural Development and Mount Olive, North Carolina." ''Agricultural Outlook Forum 2007.'' March 1, 2007. *Lecker, Kelly. "Major Pickle Firm Faces FLOC Boycott in March." ''Toledo Blade.'' October 11, 1998. *Mohan, Anne Marie. "Mt. Olive Packs and Prints Pickles and Peppers." ''Packaging Digest.'' September 2005. *“Mount Olive Pickle Employees Community Fund Awards 4 Scholarships.” ''Sampson Independent'', 28 May 2017, www.clintonnc.com/features/lifestyle/20496/mount-olive-pickle-employees-community-fund-awards-4-scholarships. *Sengupta, Somini. "Farm Union Takes Aim At a Big Pickle Maker." ''New York Times.'' October 26, 2000. *Sorg, Lisa. “This Week in Pollution: A Big Fine for the Mt. Olive Pickle Company.” ''The Progressive Pulse'', 25 Feb. 2017 *"Thousands Turn Out for N.C. Pickle Festival." ''Goldsboro News-Argus.'' April 29, 2007. *Zagier, Alan S. "Pickle Protest Planned." ''Charlotte News and Observer.'' October 11, 1998.

External links

North Carolina Pickle Festival Web siteMt. Olive Pickle Company
{{Authority control Companies based in North Carolina Pickles 1926 establishments in North Carolina American companies established in 1926 Food and drink companies established in 1926 Condiment companies of the United States