Meet ‘Ollie’ – the consummate pickle jokester

Mt. Olive Pickle Company mascot Ollie Q. Cumber is a local celebrity in his hometown of Mount Olive, N.C.

 

He especially enjoys mixing and mingling with the crowds at the annual North Carolina Pickle Festival in Mount Olive. “It’s a dilly of an event,” Ollie says. 

Organized in 1926, Mt. Olive Pickle Company has grown to become the largest independent manufacturer of pickle products in the United States. (Overall, Mt. Olive is a close second in total sales, trailing only the Vlasic label, which is owned by industry behemoth Conagra Brands.)

 
Mt. Olive’s traditional brands of pickles, peppers, relish and salad cubes have truly put North Carolina on the national map. Mt. Olive annually packs and sells more than 230 million glass jars of products across the country. 

The company has developed a loyal base of national consumers who seem to enjoy patronizing a company with a sense of humor. 

The Mt. Olive Pickle Company headquarters building in downtown Mount Olive is located on the corner of Cucumber and Vine. This image is conveyed on murals that adorn the sides of company tractor-trailers.

 

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Mt. Olive Pickle Company is one of the “coolest” manufacturers operating in North Carolina today, and the company is likely to be a front-runner in the 2022 “Coolest Thing Made in North Carolina” online contest that is conducted by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce.

 

To nominate Mt. Olive, go online at coolestthingmadeinnc.com prior to the Aug. 19 deadline. On Aug. 25, the NC Chamber will announce the full field of nominees, and the public may go to the site to cast their votes. 

The field of candidates will narrow with each round of voting, with the winning products being announced on Thursday, Oct. 6. 

The Mt. Olive story began when 37 Mount Olive investors took a gamble in 1926. They pooled their money to create a “community pickle company” in a small town in southern Wayne County. 

Isham Faison Witherington, who owned an insurance company in town, emerged as the company’s leader. He successfully ran the operation for about three decades. 

After Witherington’s death in 1955, Johnny Neal Walker, 31, was selected as Mt. Olive’s CPO (chief pickle officer). He was described as a “serious businessman who was lighthearted about pickles.” 

Walker became known for “his pickle pun-laced conversation and correspondence, habitually closing letters with ‘Dill then.’”

 

Julie Beck of the Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce said that Johnny Walker planted the seed to create the pickle festival. She said he had a “dill-lightful” personality. 

When Walker retired in 1990, he was succeeded by William H. Bryan, who was fond of saying: “We are all ‘pickle people’ at Mt. Olive. We are the single best ingredient behind every jar of pickles, peppers and relishes that we make.” 

The company’s current president is Bobby Frye Jr., who grew up with pickle juice in his blood. He’s a third-generation Mt. Olive employee. His grandmother, Birdie Robinson, was Mt. Olive’s first female salesperson. His father, Bob Frye Jr., spent his entire 63-year career with Mt. Olive (not a misprint). 

Now, with Ollie cheering from the sidelines, Mt. Olive is expanding into Goldsboro. The company announced in February 2022 that it was investing $35 million to add two sites, totaling more than 290,000 square feet, to support three more production lines, warehousing and distribution.

 

“The Goldsboro expansion relieves pressures on the company’s facilities in Mount Olive and positions us to handle growth well into the future,” Bobby Frye said. “We are pleased that all of our operations will remain in Wayne County.” (Goldsboro is about 15 miles north of Mount Olive.) 

Ollie is salivating. Goldsboro is new territory for him to meet new friends and humor them with his jokes and puns. 

Ollie, what do pickles do on their day off? 

“They relish it!”