In 1950s Sedley, Virginia, housewife Dot Hubbard unknowingly engineered a decades-long brand when she began selling her blister-fried pea nuts to nearby pharmacies, shops, and neighbors. Using the plumpest peanuts she could find on her father’s farm, she blanched then fried the nuts until golden brown and impossibly crunchy, a technique she learned growing up. Her family recipe set the first model for commercialized blister-fried pea nuts, and the jumbo nuts outmatched anything the USDA had seen at the time (they’ve since been categorized as Super Extra Large or XXL grade). As Hubs Peanuts enters its 70th year in business, it maintains a loyal, almost cultlike following and remains family operated, now by Dot’s daughter and grandson, Lynn Rabil and Marshall Rabil.
Dot Hubbard developed her signature product using the largest peanuts she could get from the growers in Sedley—the ones too large for the standard peanut processing equipment. They entered the commercial space unclassified, as their size exceeded anything seen before on the market. As Hubs’ popularity soared, so did demand for these sizable peanuts, so the USDA developed the “XXL” or “Super Extra Large” grade specifically for this breed of Virginia peanuts.
Join us in Celebrating Hubs Peanuts 70th year in business!