- [Announcer] "A Fork in the Road" is brought to you by: (gentle music) - [Narrator] From produce to people.

The best things are grown and raised in Georgia.

Even in tough times, we come together, work hard, and grow strong.

When you purchase Georgia-grown products you support farmers, families, and this proud state we call home.

Together, we will keep Georgia growing.

(mellow music) ♪ Picture perfect ♪ ♪ Hang the picture on the wall ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ I see your shine from afar ♪ ♪ Yeah, to me, you are the star ♪ ♪ All right, baby ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Feels good, feels fine ♪ ♪ Take the feeling, pass it on ♪ ♪ Just pass it on ♪ ♪ Na-na-na-na-na, na ♪ (gentle music) - The fascinating and ever-changing world of agriculture.

Let's hit the road here in Georgia and meet the farmers, producers, makers and bakers who keep us all fed and keep us coming back for more.

Straight ahead at the "Fork in the Road."

(rustic rock music) ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ I came from the mud ♪ ♪ There's dirt on my hands ♪ ♪ Strong like a tree ♪ ♪ There's roots where I stand ♪ - [David] Georgia farmers, artisans, merchants, and producers, we depend on these men and women every day of our lives through the choices we make and the food we consume.

Their strategy and approach is always shifting but the endgame remains the same, results.

(upbeat music) When it comes to peanuts, the state of Georgia is number one.

In fact, over 50% of all peanuts grown in the U.S. come from the Peach State, or in this case, the Peanut State.

This episode is part two of our two-show exploration of the Georgia peanut.

Time to meet the farmers who grow it and those who showcase different uses of this magnificent legume.

There's a process when it comes to growing, knowing where to grow, and how, but just as important, knowing when to dig.

(gentle music) - Growing up around peanuts, it's like an intuition.

You can look at the vine, you can see the change in the texture of it, in the looks of it.

You can see that there's some brown in here but the most thing we're looking for is the color of this stem here.

It goes from green to more like yellow-green and that's an indication that it's reaching its peak and you'll just see the difference in the texture and the color of the vine.

We want to get the maximum grade out of this peanut which means we do the blast test.

It's not 100%, but it's a close knowledge of whether you are too early or whether you may be too late.

- [David] Farmers use the hull scrape method or pod blasting and also the peanut profile board to determine if peanuts have reached optimum maturity for harvest.

Digging peanuts is one of the biggest decisions farmers can make each year.

The maturity of a peanut affects the yield, flavor, grade, and shelf life.

- Peanuts are graded and anything above 70 is considered acceptable.

Anything below 70 is considered immature.

In other words, if you're looking at 100, if it's above 70, we would consider that as in the ballpark.

If it's below 70, we would consider that immature.

In other words, most of the prices that we receive from the buying points is based on 70, 72, something like that, at a minimum.

we would like to get a 74, 76, 78, and I have heard as high as 84.

That's almost like unheard of.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - That's like unheard of, but, but I have had a 80 in my lifetime, I had an 80.

Everything gotta click just right.

(gentle music continues) What we do is we pull a good handful of vines of peanuts and we pick 'em off and they put 'em in a cage and they put a pressure washer.

It takes their skin off the peanut hull so that you can see the color.

Now, it goes from black to kind of a yellowish brown.

Black, meaning full mature, yellowish brown, meaning less mature.

(gentle music) - [David] Farmers can lose as much as 500 to 700 pounds per acre if peanuts are harvested too early or too late.

- If we get too much of the light brown and not enough of the dark brown, it means we're below 70.

If we get as much as possible into the dark brown or black, it means we're going higher into the 70s.

Now, it's a good chance for you losing peanuts when you get past those numbers because the one that's black, the stem will separate and you could lose it trying to wait on the one that's brown.

So what we want to do is we want to get as many in that group as we can without losing the full mature ones.

- We dig them and invert them when they're at their peak maturity, trying to maintain the highest level of maturity without those oldest peanuts sprouting.

So we have dug them and now they'll sit for two or three days.

Then we'll come and harvest them, which is taking the pods off of the vines, and then the pods are sold, in our case, as peanut seed.

There is no real difference in a seed peanut and one that is in mixed nuts or is in peanut butter, but we do a lot to preserve the identity of it and to make sure that we don't damage the germination in them in our curing process.

So there are a few minor differences.

(bright music) - [David] Now, from the field to the buying point.

After peanuts leave the field they still contain approximately 20% moisture.

Many farmers do not have the time during harvest to continue cleaning and drying their crop.

So they often rely on a peanut buying point to receive, weigh, clean, dry, inspect, grade, and prepare the peanuts for storage and shelling.

Many times while harvesting the peanuts will contain little pieces of rock, dirt, sticks, and other foreign material which are dumped in the wagon with the peanuts.

So a cleaner is then used to separate all of that from the peanut itself.

Next, peanuts are graded by the Georgia Federal State Inspection Service.

Here, a sampling of 60 up to 200 pounds of peanuts are removed from each load and graded according to USDA regulations - All peanuts are taken to a central buying point where they're cured.

We try to harvest our peanuts at about 18% moisture and for commercial sale of peanuts we need to have that moisture down at 10.49% so they will store properly all winter long till we use them next year.

So because we're kind of in a funny situation, we're not at the heart of the peanut belt, we're sort of in the northern fringes of it, we decided, "Hey, we'll just do that ourselves."

So we do all our own drying and curing and then we also sort the peanuts out.

And we sell everything that comes out of that process except for a little bit of trash.

We sell the bigger peanuts, the more mature peanuts, as seed, the smaller peanuts and whatever might be shelled in the harvesting process, we sell as oil stock and it's worked out really well for us for a long time.

So it's another step along in the process.

Some farmers do this, some farmers don't.

At some point, though, all peanuts are cured and sampled for the proper moisture and then they go into storage, most likely, in Georgia.

(jaunty music) All right, what's going on here?

Well, I'm gonna stick this down in the load so that I see the moisture throughout the load.

We probe this down through there and then get a sample.

I need to get that moisture down to 10.49%.

So it has to be that way for them to be able to grade it.

And it also is important because if they store it at that level, then it won't rot or anything.

Whether they do it at a buying point or I do it myself, this is the way it happens.

They probe it, they see what the moisture is.

- [David] And from there, the peanuts are then prepared for storage or shelling, or they can be transformed into candy, peanut butter, or other tasty peanut treats which we will see later in this episode.

(energetic music) Let's continue our peanut adventures over in Hawkinsville where growing, roasting and boiling are a Hardy family tradition.

(upbeat music) These are Georgia's version of the Hardy Boys.

For over 70 years the Hardy family has been growing peanuts down here and over the past few decades, the business has evolved and expanded, and it all still remains in the family.

- We're in the business of growing green peanuts and green peanuts are peanuts grown especially for boiling.

And what you see behind me is peanuts coming in from the field today.

They flow through the building through certain pieces of equipment and, ultimately, into the pot to get boiled or into the bag to get shipped to supermarkets.

We harvest them two to three weeks prior to full maturity.

That's when a green peanut is best for boiling, when it stills kind of tender.

It is a difference in the climate and the soil.

We think we see a difference in flavor.

It's kinda like the Vidalia onions, there's something about that soil, about the climate.

We see that right here with our green peanuts as well.

We're honored and thrilled to be able to grow such a nutritious and delicious product that people seem to enjoy very much.

(bright music) I'm a third-generation farmer.

My dad farmed, his dad farmed.

I've been farming with my brothers and a cousin now for 50 years.

- [David] The growing got this business off the ground but it was the next generation that decided there could be so much more to this peanut business than just growing.

- 20 years ago, we brought in my son and my nephew, Brad, Ken.

They developed the boiled peanut market, the roadside stands and the mail order, and now they're also into roasting them.

- It's always nice to work with family.

(chuckles) Sometimes it's difficult, sometimes, but for the most part it, it's a great thing to work with family and we like to keep that family aspect.

We've been able to pick up a lot of customers because of that.

- [David] Roadside stands like this, offering fresh bags of green peanuts and hot smoking pots full of boiled peanuts began popping up all around the southern part of Georgia, eventually, becoming a part of routine road trip snacks when passing through town, or simply an easy stop to stock up on this protein, potassium, and fiber-rich product.

Nowadays, there are two factories down here doing two different things with the peanut.

Ken operates the green peanut operations and the boiling process.

- We bring the graded peanuts in here.

What you see behind me we got five different pressure cookers.

They're ran by a steam boiler that's on the other side of the wall.

We'll cook in here two to three times a day.

Normally we do about 5,000 to 7,500 pounds of boiled peanuts each day.

Fresh peanuts, after cooking, we bring 'em out, cool 'em.

They get bagged up and carried out.

Mostly to grocery stores throughout the southeast.

And we cook these things and the magic, the secret is letting 'em soak.

So we leave these peanuts after they're completely done, tender, we'll leave 'em in the water for about two hours.

That's where they soak up, they get that good salt flavor, or that's our hot and spicy ones.

That's where they soak up that good heat.

Right now, we're actually cooking three batches of the hot and spicy.

Normally it's three regular, two hot, but had a little bit of run on the hot right now.

- [David] Brad can usually be found at the roasting plant a few miles down the road.

And it's here you'll discover hundreds of giant bags of peanuts ready to be roasted and shipped to stores across the country like Walmart.

And the roasting facility itself is truly fascinating.

(energetic music) - As this is a full oil roasting and dry roasting operation.

We actually produce about 10 million pounds of roasted peanuts through this facility every year.

All of these large white bags, we call them super sacks, 2200 pounds of peanuts come from the shellers.

Unlike our other operation where we grow everything on our own, everything we do here we purchase from the market.

So these peanuts come from all over the state of Georgia.

Everything here is Georgia grown.

They come to us already shelled, already cleaned.

Most of 'em are already blanched.

So then when we get the peanuts they're ready to go right into our cookers.

This part of our operation is our oil roaster.

Most of our oil-roasted peanuts, they all go to candy companies all over the country.

These candy companies will take our peanuts and they'll put 'em in their candy bars, their trail mixes, their peanut butters, all sorts of things.

We run our peanuts through a shaker.

This allows the small parts and little pieces of the nut that we're not taken out during the blanching process to get taken out right here so that it doesn't contaminate our oil.

This is our oil roaster.

We can cook 2000 pounds an hour of product on this machine every single day.

The oil on this end of the machine is 320 degrees.

Peanuts come in raw and in four minutes they come out the other end of the machine fully cooked.

You could cook chicken wings here if you wanted.

We don't, but you could.

(upbeat music) We cook all our peanuts with pure peanut oil, and then at the end we actually do a secondary peanut glaze that will give the peanuts that nice golden color and aroma.

Peanuts then go into the hopper and then into our 30-pound boxes.

These get, in turn, put on pallets and then sent to candy companies out all over the country.

Companies like Walmart or Sam's or CVS or Walgreens.

A lot of times when you go into those stores the peanuts inside their bags come from right here in Hardy Farms Peanut.

One thing we do that not a lot of our competitors do is that we vacuum-seal every bag of peanuts that we send out so that when our peanuts go into these boxes they have a much-extended shelf life.

A lot of our customers really appreciate that extra step that we take.

We actually have our own brand of flavored peanuts in a few stores out there, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Ingles, Piggly Wiggly, places like that.

Peanuts go up, get scaled, get packaged, and then they go out to the stores - [David] Grab a flavored bag of Dill, Crushed Peppers, Sweet Sriracha, or Simply Salted, stop by a stand for a boiled treasure, or grab a bag of green peanuts and just boil 'em yourself with a little salt.

Whichever way you choose, you can't go wrong.

And just know that Georgia's own version of the Hardy Boys will always be hard at work on their next case of peanuts, of course.

(energetic music) From the roasting to the grinding we go to a husband-wife team in Chamblee who grind nuts and legumes into tasty, creamy, or chunky concoctions.

(bright music) So how can something so creamy, at times crunchy, and always tasty, be so incredibly healthy?

Well, that's a family secret but Jaime Foster and her husband Harry are at least willing to share.

Introducing the Georgia Grinders.

- We founded Georgia Grinders back in 2012 and essentially at a tribute to my grandfather and his innovation towards health and wellness.

He started making almond butter back in the 1970s before people really knew what almond butter or nut butters were, except for the obvious peanut butter.

And this is what I grew up eating.

He took a lot of pride in shipping it all over the country to his kids and grandkids.

He was actually predisposed to cardiovascular disease and ended up living until he was 97 years old and attributes his longevity to clean, simple eating and health and wellness.

- We eat, drink, and sleep on nuts.

I mean, we think about it all the time.

It's always there.

That is a little, sometimes we're like, "Okay, we're not talking about work today."

But for the most part we get, you know, it does great, and we're a good yin and yang.

What she's good in, I don't do so well in, where she has problems, I can usually pick up the slack there too, so.

- Yeah, it's a family business and, you know, this is what our kids know, they saw this business born and here we are eight years later and they've seen what it's grown into.

So it's very inspiring to them as well.

And it is a family affair.

(gentle jaunty music) - So we started in a thousand square feet.

We're now up to about 15,000 square feet.

It has lots of room to grow and change.

We can do basically anything we want to.

Being small means you're nimble so that we can move and go in between different nuts.

We can try and experiment with different things, small batches.

In addition to doing peanut butter, which, obviously, Georgia being known for peanuts.

Georgia's also the nation's largest producer of pecans.

So we pride ourselves in sourcing, you know, peanuts from farmers in Georgia only.

And pecans.

Our pecans come from a fifth-generation grower, a family that's been doing this for well over 100, almost 150 years now.

- Essentially, our products contain two ingredients: the nuts and a touch of sea salt.

You'll never find additional sugars, oils, emulsifiers, additives, or any types of preservatives.

We want our products to be very clean and simple, as they should be.

And that way the consumer can ultimately decide what they wanna pair it with.

And whether that's something sweet or savory.

(gentle music) - [David] Pecans, peanuts, and even almonds.

Every nut requires a different method for roasting, for grinding.

But these two and their team seem to have it figured out.

- So at Georgia Grinders we make all kinds of small-batch handcrafted nut butters.

Everything from almond butter, peanut butter, cashew butter, pecan, hazelnut.

And, you know, each nut has a different property based on size, shape, moisture content, you know, all of which is affected by the roasting process and, ultimately, the grinding process.

But that's what we do extremely well here is we roast everything in-house and have identified the perfect roasting time so that the oils are released and are ground perfectly when grinding.

(upbeat music) We focus on producing one nut butter at any given time.

So as you can see right now behind us, Nate is roasting peanuts today.

They go through a cooling process and then are immediately ground.

Then we add sea salt to each and every batch with the exception of our salt-free almond butter.

And if there's any inclusion, such as our honey or maple, or our limited edition chocolate bourbon pecan butter, the inclusions get added in, mixed, shuffled over to the piston filler where each jar is hand filled, sealed by one of our employees, and put in a box and out it goes.

(bright music) - [David] And it isn't just the Foster family that appreciates this different type of nut butter.

For word has spread all over the USA.

- Georgia Grinders has been very blessed to receive a lot of awards throughout the years.

Initially, we were featured in Oprah Magazine as her favorite nut butter in 2013 on the O List.

And then Rachel Ray's magazine has featured us.

We've received some "Clean Eating" Awards.

Our pecan butter won Flavor of Georgia back in 2017.

Just continued to be very well supported by the University of Georgia and the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.

- The Agriculture department is, they've always been great along with the University of Georgia.

If you have problems, we've called up and talked to food scientists about, "We're having an issue with something in this particular variety of nut, what can we do?"

And they'll work with you.

And the state has been a great supporter.

It's about the state helping us out too, and being there for the citizens and the small businesses that are there, and the farmers.

- [David] With a thumbs up from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart, this nut butter couple is onto something special and healthy, grinding a variety of tasty nuts into jars all over America.

(rustic music) So after roasting, boiling, growing, and grinding, we now head to Edison to learn about frying.

And also a sweet little award-winning peanut treat to cap things off.

(jaunty music) At first, it seemed like something fun to do on the side, but once John West started sharing these fried nuts and the treats, others took notice.

- I've been the grocery business by trade and we've always fried peanuts at our grocery store.

And I had a friend of mine ask me if I could make some gift boxes or come up with something for Christmas gifts for her customers.

And that's how we came up with the chocolate cluster and vanilla cluster.

And we started giving those away to people, for myself.

And people told me I need to enter the Flavor of Georgia Contest.

We entered and wound up winning and that's how Georgia Fried Peanut Company was born.

We fry peanuts and we melt some chocolate and mix 'em all together and we put 'em into a form, let 'em cool, wrap 'em, put 'em in boxes, ship 'em out and sell 'em.

I mean, it's a simple process, but it works for us.

Fried peanuts taste a lot like what people consider cocktail peanuts.

They are literally fried in peanut oil.

It just brings out a better flavor.

We use real butter on them.

We use a special kind of salt, and it's a unique flavor and it's consistent and that's why we fry 'em in small batches to control our quality.

That's what we do and it works for us.

We use all Georgia-grown peanuts.

We've started small and I've been able to control what we do to be able to meet the demands of my customers.

I haven't had to make any promises that I couldn't keep to bigger companies.

I've turned down some bigger companies because I wanna be able to do it with the quality and the consistency that we've been doing.

Now, saying that, we've had an increase in sales every year.

We've grown a little bit every year and hope that continues to grow.

(gentle music) - [David] And it's not just the peanuts that are grown in Georgia.

John tries to get everything he uses from the peanuts themselves to the packaging Georgia grown.

You have the bottles.

- [John] Have the bottles.

- [David] You got the bags.

- Have the bags.

The bags and the labels are both purchased from a Georgia company out of Atlanta.

Which, again, is what we try to do.

We try to keep our business local in the state of Georgia.

Even our boxes are made in the state of Georgia so we're certainly promoting Georgia grown.

- [David] So swing by Edison or find them online.

This special flavor of Georgia with a main ingredient, the peanut, as we've learned, is best grown in Georgia.

(bright music) So we conclude part two of our Georgia peanut special a Georgia-grown staple inspected with care and consumed by the masses in a variety of sweet and savory ways.

I'm David Zelski.

See you at the next "Fork in the Road."

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - [Announcer] "A Fork in the Road" was brought to you by: (gentle music) - From produce to people, the best things are grown and raised in Georgia.

Even in tough times we come together, work hard, and grow strong.

When you purchase Georgia-grown products you support farmers, families, and this proud state we call home.

Together, we will keep Georgia growing.

(mellow music) ♪ Picture perfect ♪ ♪ Hang the picture on the wall ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ I see your shine from afar ♪ ♪ Yeah, to me, you are the star ♪ ♪ All right, baby ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Feels good, feels fine ♪ ♪ Take the feeling, pass it on ♪ ♪ Just pass it on ♪ ♪ Na-na-na-na-na, na ♪