One family’s two pecan businesses span five generations
Sometimes you meet a person so dedicated to their craft their passion is infectious. For Jennifer Cassaday, that was her grandfather Vernon Byrd and his love of pecans. As Jennifer — and anyone who knew Vernon — will tell you it wasn’t a challenge to get him to start talking about the native Missouri nut. The challenge was to get him to stop.
“My grandpa loved pecans,” Jennifer says. “He used to eat them on everything, even on top of his scrambled eggs. He always said everybody should eat at least a handful of pecans every day.”
In 1958, Vernon Byrd bought 10 acres that included a small pecan grove. He fell in love with the trees and was a pioneer in pecan grafting and production, until he passed away in 2003.
Today the farm is two groves across 600 acres and is tended by his children and grandchildren.
The Byrd family’s dedication to pecans started back in 1958. Vernon and his wife, Mary Ann, bought 10 acres near Butler, moving from eastern Oklahoma to west-
central Missouri. The property had a few pecan trees and he set about planting more and creating a massive grove.
“Back in the 1960s, he couldn’t find anybody to show him grafting,” says Cindy Bays, Vernon’s daughter and Jennifer’s mother. “But he knew they did it with grapes, so he started trying it with his pecan trees.”
He had a simple goal: Create the best-tasting pecan.
Because of their high fat content, Missouri Native pecans are more flavorful than other types. So, Vernon used them as the base of all his grafting. He added in Kanza and Pawnee varieties to increase nut size while still building off the tastiness of the Missouri Native. Over his 35-year career in pecan growing, Vernon grafted more than 4,700 trees with multiple improved southern varieties, and his son, Mark, continues grafting several hundred trees annually. Today, Byrd’s Pecans encompasses 12,000 trees in two groves across 600 acres.
Vernon died in 2003, but the pecan trees and his entrepreneurial spirit live on through his wife, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As any of the Byrds will tell you, growing, harvesting and processing pecans include equal hours of family bonding and memories.
“My grandpa would always say if you are old enough to feed yourself, you are old enough to work,” says
Jennifer, a member of Osage Valley Electric Cooperative. “So, I can remember being 5 and 6 years old and being given a bucket to go help Grandpa.”
Early in the pecan farm’s history, everything was manual. “His first pecan harvest was him shimmying up into the tree with a mallet and hitting the tree limbs,” Jennifer says. “Then my mom and aunt, who were just little kids at the time, were down below with my grandma picking up the pecans.”
-
- The Byrd family uses a pecan shaker to knock the pecans out of the tree at harvest. “A shaker is pretty self-explanatory, it grips the tree and just vibrates the snot out of it,” Jennifer says. “It’s almost like God knew we were going to have to shake these trees, because they have a ridiculous root system, so the shaking doesn’t hurt them.”
-
- A picker machine works like a large street sweeper, sucking up the pecans.
-
- Once picked, the pecans run across a conveyor belt to be inspected.
-
- The Byrd family uses a pecan shaker to knock the pecans out of the tree at harvest. “A shaker is pretty self-explanatory, it grips the tree and just vibrates the snot out of it,” Jennifer says. “It’s almost like God knew we were going to have to shake these trees, because they have a ridiculous root system, so the shaking doesn’t hurt them.” A picker machine works like a large street sweeper, sucking up the pecans. Once picked, the pecans run across a conveyor belt to be inspected. Then they are divided into five size categories.
Today process at Byrd’s Pecans is high-tech:
- Before harvest, they trim any broken limbs from the pecan trees.
- They circle the tree with a stick rake to clean up any debris under the canopy.
- A shaker, which resembles a backward tractor, clamps around the base of the tree and vigorously shakes the ripe pecans from the tree.
- A picker machine, which has rubber fingers that run along the ground at a high speed in reverse, gathers and throws the pecans into the machine. When full, the machine empties into a hopper wagon.
- The pecans are dumped into an auger that routes the pecans into a cleaner and over a belt to be inspected.
- The pecans are measured and divided into five size categories that are placed in 1,800-pound super bags.
- The bags are transported about 3 miles to their processing facility in Virginia, Missouri.
- The pecans are sanitized and dried, and then loaded into a machine to be cracked.
- By elevator, the cracked pecans go into another shelling machine that separates the shells from the meats.
- The final step is the tedious job of hand inspecting the pecans three times over an inspection table to make sure the pecans are clean and ready to package.
-
- Processing involves several machines that crack the pecans and blow off the shells. A final inspection by the Byrd family ensures they are ready to be sold.
-
- Processing involves several machines that crack the pecans and blow off the shells. A final inspection by the Byrd family ensures they are ready to be sold.
-
- Cindy Bays takes all the pecan scraps from the process and presses them to make pecan oil, which has a high smoke point and contains healthy fats.
-
- Top: Processing involves several machines that crack the pecans and blow off the shells. A final inspection by the Byrd family ensures they are ready to be sold. Bottom left: Cindy Bays takes all the pecan scraps from the process and presses them to make pecan oil, which has a high smoke point and contains healthy fats. Bottom right: You can buy whole nuts, cracked ones to pick out yourself or ones that are ready to eat.
Byrd’s Pecans products are sold at their store in Virginia in a range from 1- to 10-pound bags. Customers can find whole nuts in the shell, cracked nuts or pecan halves or pieces that are ready to eat. The store is open to customers from Oct. 15 until Jan. 1, and the Bryds even offer custom pecan cracking. Pecan halves and pieces are available year-round online and at Jennifer’s bakery and café in Adrian, Byrd’s Pecan Delights.
“I was raised with an entrepreneurial spirit,” Jennifer says. “I have the pecan farm on my mom’s side, and my dad’s parents owned a restaurant. I grew up going between the back of the pecan store and the back of a restaurant.”
Byrd’s Pecans in Virginia is open during pecan harvest, which typically runs mid-October through Jan. 1.
As a separate but connected business, Byrd’s Pecan Delights celebrates homemade goodness and opened in 2013. The menu is inspired by the delicious treats Jennifer ate during family meals as a child. Breakfast is served all day and includes dishes such as giant biscuits and gravy, burritos, pancakes and breakfast sandwiches heaped with several types of meat. The lunch and dinner menus include sandwiches, paninis, wraps, soups and salads.
Byrd’s Pecan Delights in Adrian is a bakery and cafe, owned by Jennifer.
“Our goal is to try to do as much stuff from scratch as possible,” Jennifer says. “I now realize how unique making everything from scratch makes us.”
The highlight of the menu is the desserts and baked goods, which can complement your coffee or round out a delicious meal. You can grab a no-bake cookie, giant cinnamon roll, piece of cheesecake, homemade ice cream or a slice of one of the 15 flavors of pecan pie, such as dark chocolate, caramel, classic and more.
Byrd’s Pecan Delights offers 15 flavors of pecan pie, such as chocolate or caramel.
The pecan pie can even be blended into a milkshake. One day Jennifer was making homemade ice cream and blended in a scoop of her pecan pie filling. She served it to her husband, Jeremy. His quick response: “Why are you not selling this?”
Thus, the pecan pie milkshake was born and has been a top seller ever since.
Jennifer, who graduated from culinary school with a degree in pastry arts in 2022, is now living out her dream of baking delicious dishes to feed her small community and those who happen to take the Adrian exit off of Interstate 49. She is an advocate for other small businesses. In fact, this past July she testified before a congressional subcommittee on rural businesses in Washington, D.C.
“It was one of the coolest things I’ve done, but it is also one of the most terrifying things,” she says. “I was overwhelmed to have been asked; I felt like I had a responsibility to small businesses all across rural America.”
As Jennifer sat across from policymakers, she channeled her grandfather and recognized the opportunity they both had in following their dreams. “When I was a young adult, I would sit around the kitchen table sharing dreams with my grandfather,” she says. “For me it’s always been about taking the torch and passion from my grandpa.”
Pecan experience runs through three generations of the family, including Cindy, her daughter, Jennifer, and Jennifer’s son Camden.
FUN FACTS ABOUT PECANS
- Pecan trees can top 70 feet in height and live more than 200 years.
- Missouri is the northernmost pecan producing state and accounts for no more than 2% of national production.
- A shorter growing season and cooler climate in Missouri is why the state’s native pecans have more oil and the uniquely sweet flavor.
- Pecan is a Native American word meaning “crack with a stone.”
- Source: Missouri Northern Pecan Growers
You can order pecans from Byrd’s Pecans at www.byrdspecans.com. Visit Byrd’s Pecan Delights at 115 S. Old Highway 71 in Adrian or learn more at www.byrdspecandelights.com. The bakery, café and gift shop are open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is one of 500 companies in the Buy Missouri initiative overseen by Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe. To find more Missouri-made products, visit www.BuyMissouri.net.