Growing grapes in Northwest Arkansas
Visitors to the Bella Vista Historical Museum often ask how on earth did farmers make a living in this hilly country that is now Bella Vista?
Actually, there are enough valleys and gentle slopes here for farmers in the past to raise a number of successful crops, including tomatoes, green beans, corn, strawberries and more.
One popular crop was grapes. Tontitown, located west of Springdale in Washington County, is well known for its grape history, but growing grapes was popular all over Northwest Arkansas, including Benton County. In fact, Welch’s Foods built a plant in Springdale in 1922, which led to even more farmers in this area growing grapes. One of them was Wilson Brown, who built his home and business, which he named Rago, in what is now the Metfield area of Bella Vista between Ettington and Euston.
According to the University of Arkansas website, www.uaex. edu, “Grapes had a hard time getting started in the New World, but a resident of Concord, Mass., named Ephriam W. Bull (18051895) raised a grape seedling in his garden that tolerated the vagaries of the American climate. He planted a few native ‘fox’ grapes for decoration around his new home about 1840. After raising seedlings from two generations of these plants, he selected a form with large fruit that he named ‘Concord’ … By the end of the 19th century, it became the most commonly planted grape in the nation and is given credit as the first really successful grape in the United States.”
Welch’s Foods got its start, according to the Concord Grape Association (www.concordgrape. org), as a result of a New Jersey dentist, Dr. James Welch, with the help of his wife and teenage son, deciding to try in 1869 cooking grapes in their kitchen, squeezing the juice into cloth bags, and then pouring it into quart-sized bottles. Dr. Welch then applied Louis Pasteur’s theory of pasteurization by stoppering the bottles with corks and wax and boiling them in water to kill any yeast in the juice to prevent fermentation. That success in preserving fresh grape juice pioneered the industry of canned and bottled fruit juices in America. By 1897, Dr. Welch was processing 300 tons of grapes per year.
Having been a former Methodist preacher but changing careers when throat problems made it difficult at times for him to speak, Dr. Welch remained active in the
church. At a time when the temperance movement was gaining momentum, he began selling his unfermented grape juice to churches who wanted to get away from using wine for communion. At first, the business didn’t take off, but over time as the temperance movement grew and his congregation mandated the use of unfermented grape juice, his business grew. He also began marketing it as a health tonic, but when he offered samples at the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair, it really took off, and the Welch Grape Juice Company was incorporated in 1897. James Welch died in 1903, but his son and grandsons continued to run the company. According to www.waymarking.com, “The juice’s visibility increased in 1913 when Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan served the beverage at a diplomatic event, and the next year when the Navy substituted Welch’s grape juice after outlawing alcohol on its ships.”
The Springfield, Mo., Springfield News Leader, of Dec. 18-24, 1920, reported, “Farmers across the Ozarks enthusiastically discussed increasing their grape acreage and crop yields and preparing their fields to grow grapes. Just a few weeks prior, the Welch Grape Juice company announced plans to build a $500,000 plant in Springdale, Ark., on the Frisco lines… To help educate its readers, the Springfield Republican ran an article…(that) explored why Arkansas had ideal climate, soil and other conditions for growing not only grapes but other fruit….The Springdale plant was completed in 1923….It once boasted an annual payroll of $3 million and processed up to 4 million cases of fruit juice products a year.”
Larry Horton, in his book, “The History of Bentonville Arkansas,” stated that the 1940 census showed that Benton County produced 1,811,362 pounds of grapes that year, but by the late 1940’s, grapes and other crops had fallen below any previous numbers.
However, the Village Vista of August 23, 1977, reported that grapes were still a going business concern in northwest Arkansas. At that time, Welch was paying an average of $2 million annually to growers in the Springdale plant area. Welch said they expected 10,000 tons of grapes that season.
From the time the Welch’s plant opened at 300 East Huntsville Avenue in Springdale in the 1920s, area farmers grew Concords under contract with Welchs. Welchs sold the plant in 1992. Information is not available to which company Welchs sold, but the company occupying it today is called Lassonde Pappas.
That company’s website, www.lassondepappas.com, states that Clement Pappas, with his two brothers, all Greek immigrants, entered the food processing business in 1921, but the two brothers wanted to return to Greece, so in 1942 they split up and Clement purchased a factory in New Jersey, naming it Clement Pappas & Company. In 1983, the company continued to expand by purchasing the former Seabrook
Foods in Seabrook, N.J. Over the next 25 years, the company established plants in Arkansas, North Carolina, Massachusetts, California and Maryland.
In 2011, Clement Pappas & Company united with Pierre-Paul Lassonde’s company, a Canadian leader in branded and private label beverage manufacturing and became a subsidiary of that company.
In 2016, the company rebranded to Lassonde Pappas & Company, which is how they are now known in Springdale.
In 1952, Welchs loaned $28 million to the farmers
who supplied it with grapes to finance the farmers’ purchase of the company. Since then Welchs has been owned by the National Grape Cooperative Association, a group of over one thousand farmers. The grapes that Welchs uses now are from other regions, not including Arkansas.
According to their website, www.welchs.com, all that Welchs has remaining in northwest Arkansas is their sales team in Rogers that supports Walmart and “provides sales, category management, logistics, and business development expertise to this key customer.”