Packing a Peck of Pickles

The Garden Organic crew visits Grampa's Pickles in nearby Scales Mound, Illinois. How a company that started out as a retired couple's way to pass the time has turned into a thriving enterprise.

Gary Olsen and the Noel Brothers, Brandon and Justin, and Austin Ockenfels

Approximate Length 15:38

ne of the best things about the Garden Organic cable show (in our sixth year) is that we go on field trips to farms, gardens, and occasionally to food processors. For years we've been featuring Gramp's Pickles on our annual tour of Dubuque Farmers' Market, and Sara Carpenter and Megan Horstman, our show's co-hosts, decided it was time to drive the reasonable distance to Scales Mound, Illinois and the new headquarters of Gramp's Gourmet Foods and see what this enterprise was all about.

The neat thing about Gramp's Pickles is that they are made the old fashioned way, which is to say they are hand cut and each batch is prepared with the same tools one would use in someone's kitchen. That's why they are so authentic and taste the way they do, explains the Gram of Gramp's Pickles, Janet Brickner. "We could automate these processes, but then our pickles (of which there are a growing variety of flavors and styles) would taste like everyone else's pickles. This is what keeps us old fashioned, and that's what people want."

The Brickners started making pickles as a way to pass the time in their retirement years, but their keen business sense of recognizing and opportunity kicked in when friends and family begged them for more jars. Then came an opportunity to set up a little table at a nearby farmers' market in which they quickly sold all they could carry. Now their new facility in Scales Mound, Illinois has employees, and a distribution network that extends all the way to Chicago. But their main and favorite way of marketing their products is through farmers' markets. Janet believes the face-to-face contact between the customer and the producer is what makes their products so attractive to customers.

Our Garden Organic kids got to sample the wares, and some new products that are catching hold in the market place... most notably Apple Pie in a Jar. It's sweet nectar that smells and tastes exactly like an apple pie. "Mighty good," said Justin Noel who was excited about taking a jar home with him.

The Brickners are taking what they've discovered about niche marketing foods and applying it to an expanding product line that includes beets, honey, maple syrup, and a variety of other things.

Click here for an archival version of the movie you can keep forever.