Our cucumber processing facility includes over 70,000 square feet with 2 Backus, 12 drop cucumber graders, fresh cucumber crate lines, and 2 hydro coolers. Our cucumbers are unloaded from the field trailers with water and separated according to diameter. A tractor-trailer load of pickling cucumbers can be graded every fifteen minutes.

Nash Produce’s growers produce a total of approximately 1,500 acres of pickling cucumbers for the spring and fall crops. Harvesting is all done by hand with hundreds of pickers needed. We are gentle with the crop as to ensure quality.

For processing, pickling cucumbers can be separated into twelve grades and are sold bulk or in forty-two bushel bins. Fresh market pickling cucumbers are processed and placed in bins according to size graded a second time before being packed in 1 1/9 or 1/2 bushel crates. After packing all products are immediately run through a hydro cooler, top iced, and shipped.

In addition, Nash Produce is a member of the North Carolina Pickle Producers Association (NCPPA), an organization originally established to provide support for research on cucumbers in North Carolina, particularly for the plant breeding program. Thomas Joyner, Nash Produce’s President, has served as the President of the Board of Directors for NCDPPA for the 2008-2010 term.

Pickling Cucumbers are available as follows:

• Processing
  - 4 bushel cardboard containers
  - Bulk
• Fresh Market
  - 1 1/9 bushel crates
  - 1/2 bushel crates