Coolest Things Made in Missouri 2026: Black walnuts

Brian Hammons

Owners: Dwain Hammons, Brian Hammons, Lori Basecke, Jacob Basecke and David Hammons
Employees: 70
Founded: 1946
Web: Black-Walnuts.com
2025 Revenue: Undisclosed
Product Pricing: $6.99-$12.99
Why is this the coolest product made in Missouri? There are thousands of people that are personally involved with black walnuts every year who create memories with the harvest and with enjoying the treats that are made with black walnuts.

Eighty years after Ralph Hammons created a business out of the wild black walnut, Stockton-based Hammons Product Co. continues to turn the official state tree nut of Missouri – the state with the most black walnuts in the U.S. – into a tasty recipe ingredient available in stores and online.

SBJ: What is Hammons’ origin story?
Brian Hammons, president/CEO: It’s kind of become a legend around here, but my grandfather, Ralph Hammons, came back from the Navy in World War II and he had a grocery store in Stockton. He had a reputation for fair dealing and buying and selling different things, and a company in Virginia needed some more black walnuts … and they knew there were some here in Missouri, so they reached out and somehow they located him as somebody they could work with to help buy black walnuts here and then ship them to Virginia. So he did that in 1945 and it ended up being like 3 million pounds of nuts or something like that.

SBJ: And then he decided to get into the walnut business?
Hammons: He looked around and said maybe there’s an opportunity here to buy some nuts and crack them, so he went to Tennessee and bought a black walnut cracking machine, brought it back here and set up a cracking operation in the fall of 1946. He had some of the folks that he trusted from the grocery store helping him, and within a couple of years it was growing and he had a product that people liked. He went to St. Louis and got an ad agency and was able to put together a brand name, and this continued to grow [into a] bigger location, bigger cracking machine, more people … and a lot of hard work, too.

SBJ: What distinguishes the black walnut from other nuts?
Hammons: The black walnut is unique. It is a wild nut that grows in the Midwestern part of the United States. Two words are easy to remember to distinguish black walnuts from walnuts: One is bold and the other one is wild. That bold flavor of black walnuts is so unique and distinctive. It’s very rich. It’s an ingredient nut more than it is a snack nut. The English walnut has a very thin shell and a lot of nut meat so it’s very easy to crack. Black walnut, not so much. The shell is very thick. It’s darker. It’s rough. It protects the inside nut meat quite a bit, so we don’t get very much nut meat. That’s the bold part of it. The other one is wild. It really is a wild nut.

SBJ: Black walnuts must appeal to health-conscious consumers.
Hammons: Today’s consumers are very interested in where their foods come from, so black walnuts really fit the trend of sustainability and wild and natural. There’s no fertilizers. You know, it’s planted by the squirrels, watered by the rain and then harvested by people who come along and pick them up. So it’s very sustainable, and people like that, I think. That combined with a bold flavor and the health message. Black walnuts have more protein than any other tree nut. It is a really healthy product.

SBJ: How do you source the wild walnuts?
Hammons: We rely on people in 12 to 13 states throughout the Midwest picking up the nuts in their yards and their fields … so it’s one of those foraged products that people go out and find and bring in and sell, and they make money. Thousands of people every year do that, and I love hearing the stories of folks who have picked up black walnuts for years and what they do with the money, the memories they make with family and friends, the work ethic that they teach their kids.