MOUNT OLIVE, N.C. -- For 32 years, people have been coming to celebrate the area's world famous pickles.

  • North Carolina Pickle Festival attracts up to 40,000 people each year
  • Car show and lots of food, especially pickles
  • Jessie Burritt from Raleigh won the pickle eating contest

On Saturday, thousands turned out for the annual North Carolina Pickle Festival.

There were plenty of attractions like classic car shows, dancers on stage and of course lots of food. Especially pickles.

Of course, for a yearly pickle festival, it seems that it would be mandatory that you have a big pickle eating contest. Participants had five minutes to see how many dill pickles they could consume.

Jessie Burritt, from Raleigh, was the overall winner. She ate 8 and a half pickles in those 5 minutes. She was awarded a big pickle trophy. It was the first time that she and her husband, Mike, had ever visited the festival.

"It's been so much fun and I get to carry this around all day long. All day long," she said.

The NC Pickle Festival has a huge impact on this area each year. Mount Olive has a population of around 4,800 people, but organizers say they pull in between 35,000 to 40,000 people each year for the festival.

 

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