FEATURE PAGE
August 1, 2019




Richard Edmonson (left) and Jesse Brown pose in this undated photo with two of numerous "Champion Ham" awards won by Johnston County Hams during its 73 years in business. (Old photos from a scrapbook kept by Rufus Brown)

Johnston County Hams put our Smithfield

on the map in spite of the rival Virginians


From its modest beginning as a local "freezer locker" in 1946, Johnston County Hams hit the big time over the half century that followed, shipping about 73,000 "country cured hams" to customers throughout the nation at the peak of its success 20 years ago.

In recent years, the number of sales had declined to about half that amount, said curemaster Rufus Brown, who has managed the business since his father's death in 1996. A big factor in that change, he said, is a present-day consumer preference for packaged sliced ham and other products in place of buying an entire ham. "We were one of the last ones doing the whole ham," he said this week.
Richard Edmonson (left) receives a national award in 1951 --- one of the earliest of many that propelled Johnston County Hams to fame across the USA.
Johnston County Hams was founded 73 years ago by Richard Edmonson, primarily as a place where local folks could store meats and other perishables during a time when few households had freezers of their own. Then came the "country cured" hams, which started winning national awards in 1951.

But in the early 1960s, Mr. Edmonson feared the opening of Interstate Highway 95 bypassing Smithfield would ruin his business. "Just about all the hams we sold were to tourists passing by on (Highway) 301," he told a Smithfield Herald reporter years later. "With the Interstate taking away the tourists, I didn't see how we could survive."

"As it turned out," he continued, " it was the best thing that ever happened to us. Instead of sitting here and waiting for business to come to us, we had to go out and get the business. Our sales have increased many fold since then."

In 1983, Mr. Edmonson and his business partners --- Marvin Taylor and the widow of the late Jack Broadhurst Jr. --- sold Johnston County Hams to its current owners: Leo Daughtry, Bill Kennedy, and Stephen Woodard. Mr. Edmonson continued as manager, working alongside expert curemaster Jesse Brown.

Meanwhile, young Rufus Brown started working part-time at the plant at age 12 or so, and went to work full-time when Mr. Edmonson retired in 1989.

Sarah and Rufus Brown added "Smithfield's Ham Shop" to the processing plant in 1997 --- a retail outlet for the company's products and other North Carolina food delicacies.
In 1997, Rufus and his wife, Sarah, opened Smithfield's Ham Shop, a retail store that featured Johnston County Hams alongside other North Carolina food products. Sarah had gained expertise as a marketing specialist with the N.C. Department of Agriculture, and that background helped make the store a success.

At its peak, Johnston County Hams employed 16 persons, Rufus Brown said this week.

Through the years the company continued to win state and national recognition for the quality of its products, frequently bringing home "Champion Ham" honors from the N.C. State Fair.

Adding to that was its success in head-to-head competition with "the big boys" in Smithfield, Va. who graciously agreed to a professionally run ham-judging contest in the early years of our Ham & Yam Festival, which was launched in 1985. Those Smithfield-versus-Smithfield showdowns garnered national press coverage (the "Smithfield" country-ham brand, by the way, is a registered trademark held by the Virginia-based producers).

"We have had the best hams in the world," Leo Daughtry told the Sun this week.

It's a statement hard to deny.



The home of Johnston County Hams as it appears today. This is the site of the original plant beside U.S. Highway 301 (today's North Bright Leaf Boulevard).