Last night the Pecan Shed won the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce "Family Business of the Year" award for 2012. The Pecan Shed was one of four nominees this year. It is only the second year this award has been given and we were truly honored to win.
When our family opened the Pecan Shed in 1981 on Hwy 79 in Byers, TX we had no idea what our future would be like. Thirty years later, the future looks to be full of great things…including great pecans!
The first Pecan Shed was only open November through February and it only carried in the shell and cracked pecans. Over the years business began to grow and the Pecan Shed was getting a reputation for selling quality pecans at a fair price. Soon many people from Wichita Falls began to make the 20 miles or so trip out to Byers just to buy fresh, local pecans. Due to this, we decided to lease a building in Wichita Falls on Call Field road called the Garden Patch (the name change was because it was open year round selling pecans in the fall and winter and local produce in the spring and summer).
The Garden Patch proved to have inadequate parking and the busy road became a hassle for customers. Therefore, in 1994, a new location was selected at 1401 Midwestern Parkway, our current location.
The current Pecan Shed is open year round with shelled pecans, homemade fudge, candied pecans, and a great selection of "Texas" gifts. Additionally, whole and cracked pecans are stocked beginning in mid-October until about mid-February.
Over the past 30 years, the most important thing we have learned is to always sell the best quality pecans our orchards can produce. At the Home Orchard located in Charlie, TX we have 8,000 trees that we began planting in 1987. In total we have 940 acres and over 25,000 pecan trees. Most years the orchards produce more pecans than can be used or sold at the Pecan Shed. Therefore, we are able to wholesale pecans to other stores across the country and even across the world to places like China.
On a good year we harvest close to one million pounds of pecans. However, all of this depends on Mother Nature. Tim and Jake follow intense management practices with irrigation and several sprays in order to produce these high quality pecans. We also have professors from Oklahoma State Univ. and Texas A&M that conduct studies in our orchards to try and find new methods for managing pecan crops, water conservation, etc. Our family has hosted the TPGA Convention in 1997 and the Oklahoma Pecan Growers and the Louisiana Pecan Growers have both had tours in our orchards in the past as well.
Tim is currently serving as the Texas Pecan Growers Assoc. President and served on the Board in the past. He also does numerous talks each year to growers and retailers on his management style and travels outside the United States to promote pecans in other countries. (He manages to do all this while still finding plenty of time to pursue his new dream of becoming a Bass Champion.) Jake is on a committee of the National Pecan Growers Assoc. whose main purpose is to determine the future of the pecan industry. Jill is a member of the Senior Junior Forum, she has been a member of Leadership Wichita Falls, and is active with both the Wichita Falls and Henrietta/Clay County Chamber of Commerce groups. Molly is semi-retired but you will still find her at the Pecan Shed during pecan season and whenever else Jill needs help at the store...but mainly she is a full-time grandma.
We are truly a family business. While Jake and Jill have worked elsewhere they both decided to come back and work for the family. We take pride in knowing about every thing that takes place in our orchards and our store. We are there every day to make sure we are providing our customers with the best we can give them.
The next generation of Pecan Shed management is Jake’s daughter Presley and Jill's daughter Dotty (the cute little girls we feature in all our television commercials). We look forward to continuing to grow and change yet always maintain superior quality and customer service.
For more about our recent award click on either (or both) of these links!
(link #1 - Times Record News article) http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2012/may/22/chamber-of-commerce-industry-award-banquet-honor/
(link #2 - KFDX Channel 3 news report) http://texomashomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=179822
