Overview The North Carolina Pickle Festival is a free street festival in downtown Mount Olive, the hometown of Mt. Olive Pickle Company, and on the 2025 Main Day the company handed out 2,432 jars of pickles one serving at a time, more than 30,000 servings. The festival calls itself part street fair, part community festival, part family reunion. With pickles. North Carolina Pickle Festival, Inc. puts it on with the Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce on a Saturday in late April. It started in 1986, and the 2026 festival was billed as its 40th year. On site Main Day runs 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. through historic downtown: more than 200 vendors and attractions, four stages of live entertainment, roaming performers, children's activities, carnival rides and a Pickle Train next to the library, a classic tractor show on James Street, an open house at the Mount Olive History Museum, and a beer, wine and distillery garden. The Pickle Eating Contest at noon seats up to 20 eaters; the 2025 champion put away 12 whole kosher dills in five minutes. Ollie's Costume Contest follows on the same stage. The night before, the Cuke Patch 5K Glow Run goes off and a concert plays at R and R Brewing, and on Saturday morning the Tour de Pickle bike ride rolls out from the pickle company's Walker Warehouse. In 2025 the festival spread out onto a new layout and added park-and-ride shuttles. Track record Attendance hit a record 30,500 in 2024, and the festival counts its crowd with Placer AI location data. It has picked up a shelf of awards from the N.C. Association of Festivals and Events, including Director of the Year in 2025 for co-chair Lynn Williams and best poster, brochure and merchandise several years over, plus a 2024 Central Coast Tourism Award and a spot on the Southeast Tourism Society's Top 20 Events for April in 2019. Brand presence The pickle company runs through the whole day, from the giveaway to the Walker Warehouse start of the bike ride. R and R Brewing has made festival beers and sodas, among them Pickletown Lager and an NCPF Pickle Soda that each won best merchandise, and was named sponsor of the year in 2024. Sponsor levels are named for the product, from Sweet Relish and Sweet Gherkin up through Bread and Butter and Zesty Kosher Dill to a presenting sponsor whose name rides on "The North Carolina Pickle Festival, presented by" and on the sleeve of the official T-shirt. Sponsors get vendor space, passes to a Sponsor Hospitality Suite on Main Day and an invitation to a sponsor reception at the historic Southerland-Burnette House earlier in festival week, and their listing stays on the festival website for about a year.