By David Bradley, Chatham News + Record Staff

 

Southern Supreme Fruitcake is open year-round, but starts gearing up in August for the busy holiday season. Friends, family members and local high-school students assist the business in making Southern Supreme’s signature fruitcake products.

If it’s November and there’s a nip in the air, then you know something else is happening as well: crowds are streaming to Bear Creek for a time-honored trek to Southern Supreme.

Southern Supreme Nutty Fruitcakes and Gourmet Confections is located at 1609 Hoyt Scott Rd. in Bear Creek, a small community of about 3,400 persons that serves as an unlikely hub for Christmas shoppers. But with the holidays fast approaching, Southern Supreme is at full tilt, making and baking an array of tasty treats for gift-givers far and wide.

Employing more than 100 seasonal workers, high school students and friends and family members in various parts of the kitchen, co-owner Berta Lou Scott and family start baking in August each year, making their signature products right up until Christmas. Southern Supreme sold 225,000 pounds of fruitcake in 2018, at one point baking 3,000 pounds each day — and keep in mind, that’s just the fruitcakes.

It hasn’t always been so busy.

After starting in 1990, baking small batches in a pizza oven for an enthusiastic audience in the area, the company began sharing its nut-based cakes at shows and fairs. Southern Supreme’s secret recipe set it apart from other holiday cakes on the market.

They encountered some resistance at first. The common response was “I don’t like fruitcake,” because other fruitcake recipes are based on candied fruits. That was 30 years ago. This summer the company embarked on its 10th remodel and enlargement since they started the business.

On a tour of the facility last Wednesday, the kitchen staff were hard at work placing chocolate into

In the kitchen area, workers stay busy with cookie creation. After mixing flour and other ingredients into the nut-heavy dough, the staff pull small portions for weighing to a precise amount before being formed into individual patties for baking.

molds with nuts, forming fruitcake dough into shape, weighing each individual cookie to specifications, and adding the cherry on top.

The tour, available to the public, offers a behind-the-scenes view of the workers and the creation process of the various products offered at Southern Supreme. Huge blocks of North Carolina cheese from Ashe County wait to be made into cheese florets with cayenne pepper. Large tubs of gingerbread dough were waiting to be formed for baking, while other flavor cookies were individually hand-pulled, and weighed to specific dimensions, before being pressed onto the baking pans. Stacks of cookie loaded pans waited for baking, while the fruitcake dough was being pressed into the molds made by co-owner Randy Scott, Berta Lou’s son, before going into the oven.At the end of the tour, customers have a wide range of these and other products available for purchase inside the newly-built showroom, along with a choice of gift items they saw in creation — such as the chocolate-covered peanuts, cheese florets, and special relishes seen among the Christmas decorations in the room. The final touch is a tasting room that has been opened, to give customers a sample of the products available.

Nuts, flour and other ingredients go into the cookies baked at Southern Supreme Fruitcake in Bear Creek. Each one is weighed precisely before being formed into a cookie and placed on the parchment paper covered baking sheet. The cherry is the crowning touch.

It’s all part of the Southern Supreme experience.

It’s no surprise then that the amount of sales through the showroom is impressive.

“Forty-five percent of our annual sales went out the door,” said Kathy Gaines, tour guide at Southern Supreme and niece of co-owner Berta Lou Scott. Patrons from inside and outside the state regularly converge on the showroom for products, and with Christmas just over a month away, Randy Scott says that they get so busy at this time of year that the days run together. When they consider the many options for gifts each year, some of the customers consider this trip to be an annual event.

“I come every year, for goodies and the Christmas decor. I think it’s beautiful,” said Jackie Watson from Sanford as she shopped in the new showroom. “It gets you in the Christmas spirit.”

 

Shoppers are greeted with a holiday display in the newly-revamped Southern Supreme Fruitcake showroom in Bear Creek. This 10th remodel of the space now offers shoppers more space, and more products available for gift-giving.
Jackie Watson of Sanford looks over some of the chocolates available for purchase in the showroom at Southern Supreme Fruitcake in Bear Creek. She said she loves the new look. ‘I come every year for goodies and Christmas decorations,’ she said. ‘It gets you in the Christmas spirit.’
Shaped and formed cookie dough sits in a bakers rack, waiting for the oven at Southern Supreme Fruitcake’s kitchens in Bear Creek. Behind them, staff members continue to knead and patty the dough by hand into their forms. See story, photos on page B9 for more about the company’s holiday offerings.
James Gill looks at some of the vegetable products available in the Southern Supreme showroom. In operation year-round, the showroom offers a variety of relishes, jams, cheese florets and other products.
Tins of the Southern Supreme Fruitcake signature product stand ready in the new showroom. Their 10th remodel since beginning 30 years ago, the space now offers their fruitcakes next to a wide selection of chocolates, cheese florets and other tasty treats.
Kathy Gaines, a tour guide at Southern Supreme Fruitcake in Bear Creek and co-owner Berta Lou Scott’s neice, takes Alyssa Byrd, Ann Fitts and Sam Rauf from the Chatham County Economic Development Corporation around the production kitchens in the building last Wednesday.

 

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The Chatham News + Record is Chatham County’s source for local news and journalism. The Chatham News, established in 1924, and the Chatham Record, founded in 1878, have come together to better serve the Chatham community as the Chatham News + Record. Covering news, business, sports and more, the News + Record is working to strengthen community ties through compelling coverage of life in Chatham County.

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