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Country Caviar Right Here In Georgia

Posted on November 24, 2025 7:13 AM

Georgia is the leading producer of peanuts in the United States, providing more than half of our nation’s crop each year. With close to 2,000 acres of peanuts, Hardy Farms Peanuts in Hawkinsville is helping Georgia keep their lead producer crown. 

All of the equipment you see on their assembly line is custom built with peanuts in mind so that they can successfully process about 2,000 bushels a day. “We start around the middle of March planting peanuts, and we’ll plant right up through July.” Explains Farm Manager, Michael Knowles. They stay busy, and this year he says they even picked and planted peanuts on the same day. “We had a variety that made really early, and we picked some one morning and planted more that evening. Probably not very many people can say they picked and planted peanuts on the same day.” 

The truck brings the peanuts from the field to their facility where a machine shakes out all the dirt. Then the peanuts are cleaned in a wash line, sanitized, and sent through an optical sorter. “The optical sorter has all these little eyes, and it has a series of air that knocks out the bad peanuts.” They're also brought through a manual line where workers sort them too. The peanuts that don’t make the cut, go back into the soil to help fertilize next year’s crop. 

When they're not packing peanuts, they're boiling them. Hardy Farms offers Original flavored and Cajun flavored boiled peanuts. After they're boiled, they’re sent to a cooling room until a truck comes to transport them to stores. “Wherever they’re going even if they’re going way up north or way out west, they’re usually there between twenty-four and forty-eight hours.” They’re sharing a taste of Georgia’s finest all over the country. 
“It’s a taste of our childhood.”