The Pursuit of the Perfect Persimmon
The Walnut Grove Spring Water Story…
Walnut Grove’s breathtaking beauty seemed to call out to career bi-coastal businesspeople Duane & Leslie Smith on a visit to their home state of Indiana. The couple longed to drink deeply themselves of the beauty and solitude the Walnut Grove area provides.
Yielding a strategy for a retirement “fun” business, the couple planned to found the country’s only organized Wild American Persimmon farm in the unique fruit’s native habitat. Duane & Leslie realized their persimmon farm dream, aptly naming it Persimmon Valley Farms. However, the land had another gift for them: the Walnut Grove Spring.
Taking a deliberate, gentle approach to exploring the possibilities of the spring, the couple spent nearly eight years researching the spring’s formation and water quality. Step-by-step, the couple found nothing but positive results suggesting a unique natural spring water lived on their property.
Keeping the water to themselves seemed a selfish move to the couple, and selling the spring to a conglomerate bottler would compromise the natural beauty of the area. A vision was born to create a company of their own.
The spring water would be respectfully collected and bottled into the perfectly portable habitat of the carbon-friendly glass bottle using as little non-renewable energy as possible.
The company’s facilities would complement the beauty of the area and fit in with its immaculate environment. It would make a commitment to give back to the earth, society, and the local economy. It would be a company with an outlook as rare as the water itself and an example for others to follow.
A company determined to set new standards – based on the old values learned from the spirit of Walnut Grove.