Skip to navigation Site map Toggle High Contrast Toggle Font size SHOP ABOUT PRODUCTS RECIPES CAREERS CONTACT US All About Mt. Olive Enjoy Mt. Olive's 90th anniversary publication! 90 Years of Dill-icious and Still Growing From Modest Roots to the Top Pickle Company Mt. Olive Pickle Company, Inc., located at the Corner of Cucumber & Vine in Mount Olive, North Carolina, was originally founded for the purpose of brining cucumbers to be sold to other pickling firms. When this initial plan didn’t exactly work out, the young company found itself in sort of a, well, you know, pickle. Fortunately, resourcefulness prevailed, a new plan was prepared, and the company quickly began processing and packing pickles itself, formulating their own recipes and methods of production. From a modest beginning in 1926, with only a 3,600 square foot building and $19,500 in capital, Mt. Olive has quickly grown to be one of the most loved pickle companies, manufacturing a best-selling brand of pickles, peppers and relishes in the U.S for their millions of customers. Making the Best Pickles: A Community Proposition It all started in the mid-1920s with Shikrey Baddour, a Lebanese immigrant from nearby Goldsboro, who 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 salt 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 local business people who formally established the Mt. Olive Pickle Company, Inc. to pack and sell its own pickles. Thirty-seven original shareholders put forward the capital to get the company started in what all viewed as a “community proposition.” The first board of directors was led by H.M. Cox Sr., president, I.F. Witherington, vice president, and C.W. Oliver, secretary-treasurer. The board hired Moore as factory superintendent and Baddour as salesman, and it purchased one acre 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. Early records indicate that all production in that first year was done by hand: the cucumbers were taken from the vats to nearby tables, where old coffee pots were used to pour syrup into jars. A Pickle Company Ahead of Its Time Over the years, Mt. Olive earned a reputation as being one of the pickle companies ahead of its time. In 1943, the company instituted a profit-sharing plan for its employees, making it one of the first 200 companies in the country to do so. (It didn’t break the $1 million sales mark until 1947.) Later, in 1959, it put into place an Employee Community Fund. The program started with about $1,000. Over the years, the fund, governed by a committee of employees, has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to community organizations. Today, participating employees contribute 30 cents out of every $100 of gross wages, which the company matches. Making History Through Innovation Pickles have been around for about 4,000 years. But researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Fermentation Lab at N.C. State University finally unlocked the secret of controlled fermentation through research done at Mt. Olive Pickle Company in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The research done at Mt. Olive Pickle Company has paved the way for better pickles and pickle companies throughout the industry. One of several firsts came in 2002, when the company introduced the first line of No Sugar Added sweet pickle products, using the no-calorie sweetener SPLENDA® brand sweetener. In 2007, Mt. Olive rolled out its picklePAK™ line – the first pickle products offered in single-serve cups, and in 2019, the Munchies Resealable Pickle Pouches revolutionized snacking on the go! Mt. Olive Today Mt. Olive, which celebrated its 95th anniversary in 2021, is the #1 pickle brand in the U.S. Its facilities have grown from that first acre to 185 acres in Mount Olive, with 1.3 million square feet of manufacturing and warehouse space. The company has a tank yard with about 1,100 fiberglass tanks with storage capacity for over 40 million pounds of cucumbers. Mt. Olive has a team of about 1,200 employees. “Our business decisions continue to be guided by basic tenets that have served our Company well over the years: 1) provide customers with quality products, good value and superior service, 2) earn shareholders a fair return on investment, 3) be a progressive employer, 4) serve as a good steward of our environment, and 5) remain a valued corporate citizen.” – William H. Bryan, Executive Chairman Those tenets obviously served the pickle company well for its first 95 years, and it’s a good bet they will hold true for the next 95, too. What Our Customers Are Saying No more Vlassics in my fridge, as a pickle lover I assure you they have the best product in stores! I love them, not just pickles all of their products are amazing! Next Prev Send A Pickle Gift Pack Today! SHOP NOW General ContactFAQJoin Our Email ListConcerns & Product FeedbackMailing AddressShipping/Billing PolicyPrivacy Policy JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Enter Email: Mt. Olive Pickle Company, Inc. P.O. Box 609, Mount Olive, NC 28365 Consumer Relations Number: 1-800-672-5041 © 2021 Mt Olive Pickles. All Rights Reserved.