Mount Olive Pickles Tour Video

welcome to Mount Olive pickle company [Music] have you ever wondered what goes into making the perfect Mount Olive pickle well here at the corner of cucumber and Vine our recipe for success is a mixture of ingredients rich traditions attention to quality and a bit of fun Mount Olive has been in business since 1926 we got our start at the turn of the last century when a large produce market operated here in Mount Olive North Carolina a local entrepreneur saw opportunity in the bumper crops of cucumbers that were going to waste his original idea for selling brined cucumbers to other pickle companies fell through and he found himself in something of a bell you know but a group of Mount Olive businessman saw promise in a pickling operation they reasoned a new market for area farmers would be good for the whole community so in January 1926 they established the Mount Olive pickle company with one acre of land and less than 20,000 dollars in capital old coffee pots were used to pour syrup into the jars [Music] from that modest beginning Mount Olive has grown to become the best-selling brand of pickles in the country with distribution in all 50 states today the perfect pickle packing process begins with the best quality cucumbers each year we buy millions of pounds of fresh cucumbers and peppers in 10 states as well as several foreign countries about one-third of what we buy is grown right here in North Carolina from the fields of these independent growers the cucumbers are delivered to receiving stations where they're inspected and graded for size and quality the cucumbers are then delivered to Mount Olive by truck [Music] Mount Olive receives its fresh cucumbers in a variety of ways in plastic bins in cardboard containers in barrels or in bulk bulk loaded cucumbers are washed out of the truck with a powerful water hose [Music] Mount Olive packs two basic types of pickles processed and fresh pack the cucumbers arriving at Mount Olive will either go into the plant for packing as fresh pack pickles or they'll be placed in one of mount Olive's 1100 brine tanks to be fermented as processed pickles typically the tanks are filled with cucumbers in the summer and emptied in the winter our tank yard has approximately 1,100 tanks there about an eight hundred bushel equivalent which is about eight thousand gallons in a tank that equates to about 40 million pounds of cucumbers that we tank on our yard filling up the tanks in the tank yard requires some heavy lifting it takes about 200 bushels to fill a big bin we move that then to the tank where we open the bin and all the cucumbers fall into the tank it takes about four trips with a big bin to fill the tank once we fill the tank we put a wooden headboard on top of the tank to keep the cucumbers submerged and then our fermentation process begins processed pickles include Mount olives relishes and salad cubes sweet pickles sour pickles dill and some kosher dill fresh pack pickles are fresh cucumbers that don't undergo a fermentation process in the tank yard they're simply washed and placed into jars for packing fresh pack items include bread-and-butter pickles kosher dill pickles & peppers you'll find the words fresh pack on the label of these products in your grocery store [Music] when it's time for the cucumbers to be packed into jars whether processed or fresh pack the cucumbers first get up thorough washing once cleaned the cucumbers move from the outside into the cutting Department where they're cut into chips spears sandwich stuffers relish salad cubes or left whole the cukes are blanched and sent to the packing Department ready to be put into jars the empty jars arrive at Mount Olive on pallets [Music] they're placed on the production line by machine the jars are washed and inspected as they go into the packing room [Music] we pack most of our products by machine like this one which shakes the pickles into the jars as they go by pickles that don't fall into the jars recirculate for more tries employees called Stoppers use rubber mallets to make sure the jars are full and ready to be capped while most of our products are machine packed some like our Spears and sandwich stuffers are packed by hand our hand Packers packaged our of Spears on average every 12 seconds once the cucumbers are in the jars the pickle juice or cover brine is added this gives the pickles their flavor [Music] we make our pickle juice using these 400 gallon mixers we start with the base ingredients usually vinegar and water and we test the levels of vinegar and salt on each batch prior to use then we carefully measure the flavorings and other ingredients and add it to the base [Music] once the jars have both pickles and juice they're capped and vacuum sealed now that the jars are capped they're pasteurized a process that makes our pickles shelf-stable inside these 100 footlong pasteurizer x' jars of pickles move through ten different temperature zones the pickles are heated to just the right temperature and then cooled very quickly depending on the size of the jars this process takes about an hour from the pasteurizer the pickles go into the finished goods department where labels are added and a best if used by date and production code are printed on each jar the production code indicates which day of the year the jar is packed and which production shift did the packing [Music] now that the jars are finished they're prepared for shipping we use cardboard trays instead of boxes to use less cardboard our trade packing machines handle the jars with care by building the trays around the jars they also allow Mount Olive to pack different sizes of cases why this machine allows us to do is go from a 12 pack pace to a six pack case to a full type case whatever fits individual customer we're very flexible with this machine the production code information is printed on each tray and the trays are shrink-wrapped [Music] a robotic pallet Iser automatically stacks the cases onto pallets building one layer at a time the cases are placed in specific patterns to ensure the pallets are stable the pallets are then stretch wrapped throughout the process quality is vigorously maintained in quality control we check each step of the manufacturing process to make sure that our products are consistent and that we maintain our quality standards the testing that we do in the quality control lab is titratable acidity salt pH and MAME which measures the sweetness the finished pallets go to one of our warehouses for storage until they are shipped from our distribution center we're the number one brand of pickles peppers and relishes in the United States and with that our warehouse storage needs as well as our production capacity have grown we have approximately a million square feet of warehouse storage space it allows us to store about seven million cases it's a lot of pickle [Music] making the perfect Mount Olive pickle not only requires the best ingredients it also requires the best people we have over 600 employees year round and we hire another 350 seasonal workers in the busy summer months we're proud of our diverse work group and the job they do the pickle people at Mount Olive packed millions of jars of pickles peppers and relishes each year and for us safety is a big dill as a result Mount Olive is a Carolina Star site which is the highest recognition the North Carolina Department of Labor gives for effective safety and health management in addition Mount Olive and its employees are environmentally responsible the company runs an elaborate wastewater treatment system we recycle everything from plastics to cardboard to glass and we pay careful attention to how we use our resources like water to help protect our environment but making the perfect pickle isn't all we do because of our roots we believe it's important to make a stronger community too our company partners with local schools sponsors youth sports teams and supports dozens of local programs and initiatives with both our money and our products and we encourage our employees to be active in non-profit and civic groups we also like to have fun [Music] we're a major sponsor of the award-winning North Carolina pickle festival held every year here in Mount Olive on the last full weekend of April it's a dilly of a festival drawing thousands every year proceeds benefit community projects year-round [Music] and finally we invite you to join us here at the corner of cucumber and vine every New Year's Eve we drop a glowing three-foot pickle down our company flagpole into a perfectly preserved redwood pickle tank at the stroke of seven o'clock midnight in case you're wondering when it's seven o'clock in Mount Olive it's actually midnight Greenwich Mean Time we get started at 6 o'clock and we encourage you to get here early the whole things over at 7:05 [Music] [Music] the secret to our success are we focus on producing a quality product we have a place where our employees enjoy coming to work and we continue to nurture our hometown roots we have not forgotten the values which brought us to where we are today we hope you've enjoyed this visual tour of the Mount Olive pickle company to learn more about our company please visit us on the web at Mount Olive pickles calm and be sure to remember us on your next trip to the grocery store [Music] you

Channel: Eagle Video Productions Inc

Views: 783,361

Rating: 4.8981934 out of 5

Keywords: Mt Olive Pickle, Mt Olive Pickle Company, Mt Olive Pickle Factory Tour, Mt Olive Pickles Tour Video, Mt Olive Pickles Factory Tour Video, Mt Olive Pickle Tour, Pickle Factory, Pickle Tour Dill Pickles, Best Pickles, Best Dill Pickles, Best Bread and Butter Pickles, Best Sweet Cubes Pickles Best Pickles for Potato Salad, How Pickles are made, Cucumbers and Pickles Pickle Drop, New Years Eve Pickle Drop, Pickle Festival, NC Pickle Festival, Pickle Juice Brine Pickle Juice

Id: 6MgYPB0O1nI

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2018