Fairlea, WV (WOAY) –Â The State Fair of West Virginia is a major stage for the state’s small businesses, where makers set up each year hoping to reach new customers. Inside the Country Store, the shelves are stocked with West Virginia-made sauces, sweets, soaps and wine, most of it from small, family-run operations.
Bobby Collins brought Tarbilly’s Grillin’ Sauces and Rubs to the fair from Wyoming County, where the business began at home.
“It all started at home, burnt up a couple stoves making the original sauce, and just giving it away to people just to get them to try it. So once, you know, people say, hey, that’s pretty good stuff. You ought to have a package and sell it,” Collins said.
Set up next to him is Sassy Gals Gourmet Treats out of Ravenswood, which sells roasted pecans and spice mixes.
“We do our roasted pecans. We cinnamon bourbon, apple pie, moonshine and blackberry moonshine. We also have our different dip mixes you just mix in sour cream, and then we do our spice mixes that you can make with alcohol or no alcohol,” owner Sarah McCoy said.
Across the aisle, Elizabeth Dix represents Kirkwood Winery, a growing West Virginia name.
“We’ve been in business for about 35 years now. My husband and I have owned this business for nine years. We make 28 flavors of wine. We also have a distillery across the road, Isaiah Morgan distillery. We do have statewide distribution of our wines,” said Dix, co-owner of the winery.
Not everything in the Country Store is something to eat or drink. Janie Brownfield makes Brookstone Soaps out of Ona using all-natural ingredients.
“The soaps are what’s called the whole process method, which is the old fashioned method of making soap,” said Brownfield. “It doesn’t have any of the chemicals, if you look at the list of ingredients like on the back of our soap compared to like from a store bought. So it’s quite a difference in what you’ll see. And then just ours where we let a cure for 3 to 6 weeks and evaporates any extra water. So a bar of soap will last a long time,” Brownfield said.
For each of these vendors, setting up at the fair has been a significant factor in their success.
“This is a great thing for our business. It gets our name out there,” Dix said.
“That puts us out in the public’s eye and people from all over the state come here, that way we can get our products out,” said Brenda Burdette, an owner of Sassy Gals Gourmet Treats.
“It’s just mostly exposure. Year to year they’ll come back and say, I bought this soap last year,” Brownfield said.
“It definitely gave us an outlet. When we started coming here, there was more people who would come in and try the product and then they would buy the product. You know, I’m a firm believer. You try it, you’re going to buy it,” Collins said.
These four businesses are a small fraction of what’s inside the Country Store and around the fair at large.
