Pursuit of peanut lore leads to Bertie County, N.C.

Bertie County, N.C., peanuts are world famous.

 

The Virginian-Pilot newspaper, based in Newport News, Va., sent reporter Jeff Hampton on an assignment in 2014 to find out why.

He happened upon “a dented and charred popcorn popper” in the main office of Powell & Stokes, Inc., a farm supply business located in the Town of Windsor, which has a population of about 3,045.

The roots of this enterprise go back more than a century. In 1919, William Luther Powell and his brother-in-law, Jonathan Tayloe Stokes, formed Powell & Stokes. (The two families have been growing peanuts since at least 1898.)

From the second generation, Jack Powell Sr. began in the 1960s to soak some peanuts in boiling water, then fry them up in hot oil in the popper. The peanuts blistered into a tasty, crunchy snack. “Papa Jack,” as he was called, offered samples to farmers coming into the shop. Yum.

From the third generation, brothers Jack Powell Jr. and Bill Powell decided in 1994 to retail their father’s spiced-up peanuts in order “to create a product that Bertie County could be proud of.”

Traditionally, Bertie County has been one of North Carolina’s most “economically distressed” counties, so the Powells came up with the idea of packaging peanuts under the “Bertie County Peanuts” brand name.

 

This caught the attention of editors at Our State magazine, based in Greensboro, N.C., and freelance Katherine Kopp of Chapel Hill, N.C., drew the assignment.

 

Jack Jr. and Bill Powell “refined their father’s recipe for blister-fried peanuts, purchased a state-of-the-art cooker,” fired it up and bingo. “The idea resonated within the community,” Kopp wrote.

“Local people come in and stock up when they’re going away. People love to take Bertie County Peanuts as gifts to others and say, ‘This is where I’m from.’”

Not any old peanut will work for the Powells. Only “the prettiest peanuts,” those graded “super extra-large” (just about 2% of all U.S.-grown peanuts), make the cut.

From the fourth generation, Jack Jr.’s sons, Jonathan and Jeff Powell, are now fully engaged in the business.

 

Jeff, Jack and Jonathan Powell. The company was selected as Runner-Up in the Small Business of the Year competition in 2018, sponsored by Business North Carolina magazine.

“We’re asked a lot about what makes our peanuts so darn good,” Jonathan Powell said. “Aside from our years in the business and our hours of nurturing peanut plants in the field, we need to give a lot of credit to Mother Nature.”

“We’re surrounded by beautiful waterways,” he said. The Cashie, Chowan and Roanoke rivers “create a perfectly rich, fertile, sandy soil that is just right for growing some of the best peanuts in the country. We like to say that ‘our secret’s in the soil.’”

Plus, all the Powells possess a gene that “make us nuts,” Jonathan Powell added.

“We still love it when our farmer friends and neighbors come in to buy their supplies, sit, visit and talk weather and crops while munching our peanuts. The local farmers are also our best tasters. We can put out samples of something new, and they’ll give us their honest opinions.”

U.S. per capita peanut consumption has risen to 7.7 pounds per year. Elaine Watson, editor of FoodNavigator-USA, commented that this upward trend has been driven by increased demand for peanut butter and snack foods.

 

Peanut product innovations include an explosion of new flavors and combinations of nuts and fruits as well as squeezable packaging for “no-sugar-added” products within the peanut butter family, she said.

Travel about 50 miles in the northwesterly direction from Windsor to reach the front door of another iconic North Carolina peanut producer – Aunt Ruby’s in Enfield, a town of about 1,760 people in Halifax County. Let’s go there next.