The Good Earth Peanut Company started the way a lot of businesses start, as an idea. Since the Vincent family settled in this area in the early 1700’s, we tilled the soil and raised crops. When peanuts came to the area around 1830 we grew them too. Peanuts have been an integral part of the Virginia economy from that time right up to the present day.
I was born and reared on our family farm, and peanuts were our main crop. From the time they were planted in fresh April breezes, until they were harvested during the cool evenings of Indian summer in September, their care was the main focus of lives in our rural community. Sadly enough, the farm and land that I loved so much was lost in the early 1980’s when the drought and high production costs pushed many farmers out of the life they and their families had known for generations. I was in college at the time, and when I returned there was really nothing to come back to. This is when The Good Earth Peanut Company first began to take shape. During my last semester of school I had my first boxes printed and filled them with some peanuts. I was ready to sell. This was in 1981. It didn’t work out at the time, so I took a job when I finished college, glad to have the steady income to meet family responsibilities. The Good Earth Peanut Company was always on my mind, and by 1985 I printed some more boxes. With the help of my wife, we set out to build our market.
We were trying to do this while I had a full time job, and we lived 250 miles away from our families in Virginia. Our second child was on the way. Timing was not on our side. Again we retreated. Four years later, in 1989, having moved back to Virginia, we again started our peanut business. We cooked in our home until 2 and 3AM after my wife and I had both worked full time all day. We would get up the next morning at 5 to label and package our product to take on our jobs and sell to our friends and anybody else who was interested. Two years later we bought the warehouse originally built by our family, and we moved our operation in. We are still small and have grown slowly, but we continue to grow and we continue to strive toward the goals we hope will sustain us, constant improvements in our products and nothing less than 100% customer satisfaction. Our location in Skippers, VA is just 1 mile east of the I-95 Skippers exit. We are looking forward to dealing with good customers like you! We appreciate your business!
