KUNA, Idaho — Jessica Norris knows her way around a pickle jar.
"We pickle things. We pickle all the things."
Norris is the owner of Dilly's Pickled Veggies, a Kuna-based business that brines and bottles a variety of vegetables.
"We do green beans, jalapenos, cauliflower, red onions and this year we'll be launching carrots as well."
Ironically, pickles themselves aren't the fan-favorite.
"Our asparagus is huge, hugely popular; it's our best seller. We sell more than double our spicy asparagus than any other product."
Dilly's got off the ground several years ago when Norris joined forces with another local pickle producer.
"After a couple of years of working together and training under her, she retired and I took over all of the company, all of our products and we grew from there."
So much so that, eventually, Dilly's needed a dedicated place to perfect its pickling process.
"We decided ultimately that we wanted to build our own space, and so we built here in Kuna."
The veggies Dilly's uses are sourced as often as possible from here in the Treasure Valley.
"When we pull asparagus locally, we pull it from Owyhee Produce. We pull a majority of our green beans from Lakeview Fruit in Caldwell."
Also, cucumbers from eastern Oregon and Parma, all picked fresh and used at their peak.
"We hand pack everything into jars and then our spices are added and we add our brine."
A flavor combination that even Norris's three daughters can't get enough of.
"I actually have to make half-gallon sizes for them so they'll stay out of my standard product!"
And from the juice to the jar, you can use pretty much every part of a Dilly's pickled product.
"They can be snacks, you can add them to anything, we cook with them all the time, we save the brine for recipes, we'll do like a pickle brined pork chop."
A lip-smacking success story that Norris credits to being a "Made in Idaho" company.
"It's just the friendliness of it and people supporting a local brand has been wonderful."
