Orrville is all about Smuckers
Modern Day Company Town
Its a quiet, inappropriately warm, fall Monday. As I had nothing better to do, I decided to throw out this Quickhitter blog post to entertain myself. Hopefully, you find some minor entertainment value as well.
Orrville, Ohio, is a small town of about 8,000 residents. Orrville sits quietly in rural, northeastern Ohio, about 30 minutes west of Canton. However, this tiny rural town has one thing most rural towns of 8,000 residents do not have. Orrville is the location for the worldwide headquarters and factories of the Fortune 500 company, J.M. Smuckers. Yes, that is the jam and jelly people…
Basically, the entire northeast corner of the downtown is the Smuckers world headquarters and food factories. About one-fourth of the town population is employed at Smuckers. Orrville is all about Smuckers. This small slice of Americana is a great example of a modern day company town.
All Things Smuckers
When I investigate company towns, I much prefer to do the factory tour. Sadly, the folks of Smuckers no longer offer factory tours. Its a common, but unfortunate, post COVID trend. Instead, the company maintains a nice factory store and propaganda center just south of the manufacturing location. I had heard good stories about the Smuckers Company Store, So, on one chilly day in December, Carol and I road tripped to the company store…
Its NOT just Jams and Jellies
Surprisingly, the Smuckers Company Store was more interesting than I expected. Smuckers is a Fortune 500 company for very legitimate reasons. Smuckers goes way beyond just jams and jellies.
Maybe I am just ignorant…often true. But, I had no idea that Smuckers owned Hostess…yeah, Ding Dongs and Twinkies. They also have all the Jif peanut butter products. Smuckers even does coffee, both Folgers and Dunkin’. And, its not just human food…how about Meow Mix and Milk Bone.
It should be noted at this point that all these Smuckers’ products are available in your local grocery store. However, Carol still managed to blow $100 on food products from the over-priced company store.
Wrap It Up
I will keep this post short as to not give away too much free publicity to a 9 billion dollar company. But, you just don’t find these sized companies in towns of 8,000 people. Smuckers as been in Orrville since 1897 when Jerome M. Smucker began selling his apple butter. Today, 125+ years later, Mark Smucker continues the long line of Smucker CEO family leadership. Orville is all about Smuckers.
Sadly, it must be noted that the company store/visitor center has recently closed. All the important corporate/manufacturing stuff is still going full tilt. But, the tourism aspect is dead.
Have a wonderful day. PT
I hope you have enjoyed reading “Orrville is All About Smuckers” on Traveling with PugsleyTonks.
Here was an even smaller company town https://travelingwithpt.com/the-town-that-airstream-built/
Here’s more than you want on Smucker’s https://www.smuckers.com/
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