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10 informative AND fun factory tours in North Carolina

By Ryan Pitkin

February 3, 2025

From old mills and craft breweries to creameries and chocolate factories, these North Carolina factory tours are informative and fun.

It’s no secret: Manufacturing is on the decline in America. A 2024 article from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation cited United States Census Bureau data to show just how big of a drop we saw in nearly every manufacturing sector across the country from 2002-2022. 

North Carolina is no exception. Just 30 years ago, our state was home to a thriving manufacturing industry, specifically textile mills, apparel manufacturing, and furniture. However, since 1993, according to the NC Department of Commerce, employment in North Carolina’s manufacturing sector decreased by nearly 43% between 1993-2023.

But you’re not here to read doom-and-gloom reports about industry statistics, so we’re not going to waste your time with that. We’re simply raising the red flag that, with the decline of American factories comes the decline of a great if underrated American pastime: the factory tour. 

That’s why we’ve compiled the below list of factory tours that are not only informative but fun for you and (sometimes) the family. 

NOTE: We recommend that, even at locations where tours are free and open to the public for walk-ins, you call ahead to ensure that a factory or venue is taking visitors on a given day.  

1. Crossnore Weavers

205 Johnson Lane, Crossnore

Crossnore Weavers is a program launched by Crossnore Communities for Children to preserve the Appalachian art of hand-weaving, provide economic opportunities to women, and promote the organization, which provides support for children who have experienced abuse or other trauma through the sale of beautiful hand-woven goods all over the world.

10 informative AND fun factory tours in North Carolina

The Crossnore Weaving Room Gallery. (National Register of Historic Places/Public domain)

While the organization offers weeklong classes in its Weaving Room for $500, it’s free to drop by the Weaving Room, where the classes are taught to watch the women at work. 

“In the two hours we were there, the team of weavers explained many of the steps involved in the weaving process from loading bobbins to the finishing of woven fabrics all while weaving fabric from placemats to an ancient Scottish tartan pattern,” read a post on Factory Tours USA. 

For more information, contact Weaving Room Manager Lisa Banner at 828-733-4660 or [email protected]

2. French Broad Chocolates

821 Riverside Drive, Asheville

 

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They say you don’t want to see how the sausage is made, but we guarantee you’ll want to see how the chocolate is made.

Not long after meeting at a wedding in 2003, Dan Rattigan and Jael Skeffington dropped out of graduate school, converted and drove a 40-foot vegetable oil-powered school bus to Costa Rica, bought an abandoned cacao plantation, and started on their chocolatey journey.

Fast forward to 2006: Having sold their successful café and dessert shop, Bread & Chocolate, and driven back to the states, the pair opened French Broad Chocolates, expanding over the years with a lounge to meet the demand from folks who flock from all over to try their confectionery. 

Today, they offer Bean to Bar Chocolate Factory Tours every Thursday and Friday at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Tours last approximately 45-55 minutes and include tastings of cacao in multiple forms: roasted bean, bar, and bonbon. Compare and contrast the flavor notes in three different chocolate bars. Tickets are $12 for adults, $8 for kids aged 7-12, and free for anyone under 7 years old. You can also book a private tour for up to eight people starting at $220. 

3. Yadkin Valley Popcorn

Shallowford Farms, 3732 Hartman Road, Yadkinville 

Since 1987, Shallowford Farms has been a leading supplier of delicious, fast-selling Yadkin Valley Popcorn, which you can find in Food Lion, Lowes Foods, Harris Teeter, Food City, and a slew of independent retailers. 

The farm-to-table company grows, pops, and sells its popcorn all from the Shallowford family farm in Yadkinville, which houses the only popcorn factory in the southeast. “With generations of expertise in every kernel, our popcorn isn’t just delicious—it’s a true taste of North Carolina’s best!” reads the website. 

Tours take visitors inside the factory to see production and outside to see the agricultural facilities. Visitors learn about Shallowford’s “farm-to-table” experience through observing local agriculture, popping popcorn, and manufacturing. Tours are open to all ages, and a complimentary bag of popcorn is provided at the end of each one. 

Call 336-463-5938 or email [email protected] for more information. 

4. Homeland Creamery

6506 Bowman Dairy Road, Julian

Operating on a seventh-generation dairy farm in Guilford County, the Bowman family built Homeland Creamery in 2000 as high commodity prices and low milk prices sent the dairy industry into a tailspin. Today, with the help of their 25 dairy and creamery employees, the creamery processes over 7,000 gallons of milk each week.  

The most unique quality of Homeland’s products is that, while most milk today is pasteurized under the high temperature, short time (HTST) method, which heats milk to 161 degrees for 15 seconds, Homeland utilizes the traditional vat method, heating its milk in batches at a lower temperature for about 30 minutes.

The creamery’s Dairy Tours, which run from April to October, are a great way to get a hands-on experience of where milk comes from. Starting with a hayride, you’ll get a scenic view of the family farm and its crops, including cows in the pasture and baby calves being bottle-fed. From there, you’ll hand milk the creamery’s simulated cow and get a first-hand look at the milk parlor. They cost $10 per person, though babies two and under are free. The Homeland team even customizes its tour based on the age-appropriateness of each group. 

5. Replacements, Ltd.

1089 Knox Road, McLeansville

Who doesn’t get excited about fine china and crystal glassware? Since 1981, the team at Replacements, Ltd., has looked for what’s missing and found what’s needed, connecting the right person to the right piece at the right time. 

Is your treasured china set missing a piece or two? Trying to replace an irreplaceable cup that shattered? As the world’s largest supplier of active and discontinued tableware, this North Carolina-based company is the most likely to have exactly what you’re looking for. 

10 informative AND fun factory tours in North Carolina

How you know you’ve arrived at Replacements, Ltd. (Clarissa Peterson/CC BY-SA 1.0)

Replacements’ 500,000-square-foot warehouse is stacked to the rafters. The finds they’ve faithfully saved and carefully preserved over the years are testaments to survival and patience, as each piece awaits another lifetime of voices, stories, laughter, and love.

That sprawling warehouse can also be a bit overwhelming, which is why staff offers free guided tours every hour on the hour while the showroom is open (9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Saturday; tours stop at 4 p.m.). It’s not just about finding that missing piece; the tour will also take you through all the tableware history, be it intriguing or just peculiar, in its “museum of fascinating finds.” 

6. Richard Childress Racing

236 Industrial Drive, Lexington

Richard Childress is chairman and CEO of Richard Childress Racing, one of the most storied teams in NASCAR he founded in 1969. In a career spanning almost five decades, Richard established a racing team in his home garage and has grown it into one of the largest motorsports organizations in NASCAR.

The Richard Childress Racing Museum, located front and center on the 52-acre RCR campus in Welcome, North Carolina, offers visitors a walk through time and traces how an independent one-car team evolved into one of NASCAR’s most successful organizations. 

10 informative AND fun factory tours in North Carolina

The engines production facility at Richard Childress Racing. (Master Sgt. Kevin Brody/US Air Force)

The RCR Museum takes visitors through a journey that includes team owner Richard Childress’ earliest days as a NASCAR driver, the championship-winning years with Dale Earnhardt and the No. 3 team, the evolution and success of the team after Earnhardt’s untimely passing, and Childress’ passion for the outdoors.

But this isn’t just about the museum, which is free to peruse; for $55, you can take part in the company’s all-access tour, billed as “an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at our race team and an unforgettable experience for race fans of all ages.” Tours include complimentary breakfast, a guided tour of the museum, pit-stop practice and training demonstrations, a guided tour of the RCR NASCAR Cup & Xfinity Series race shops, and a guided tour of the engine production facility on campus. 

7. Mrs. Hanes’ Moravian Cookies

4643 Friedberg Church Road, Clemmons

A seventh-generation Moravian cookie maker, the foundation for Mrs. Hanes’ Moravian Cookies was set when current owner Evva Hanes was 5 years old, helping her mother, Bertha Crouch Foltz, make cookies at Christmas to supplement the family’s income from their small dairy farm. In 1960, Evva took over baking duties as the leader of the company. 

“By word of mouth the business grew and the reputation of our unique, thin, high-quality cookies has spread around the world,” Hanes wrote on the website. “We ship to all 50 states and to over 30 foreign countries. Now we have over 90,000 mail-order customers and we continue to grow about 10% a year.” 

In 1990, Evva’s daughter Mona gave her son’s kindergarten class the first organized tour of the Clemmons bakery. Though never advertised, word spread about the tours, and now tens of thousands of people take part each year. 

A typical tour lasts around one hour with stops at “Grandma’s Kitchen,” the warehouse, the “Secret Recipe” mixing room, the shipping and boxing area, the packing room, and the office. Most fascinating to most visitors is the baking area, where everyone gets to watch the artists in aprons hand-rolling and hand-cutting cookies. A sample of one of Mrs. Hanes’ six different flavors is offered at each station.

Tours are given Monday-Friday, January through October, and cost $5 per person. Morning tours can be scheduled to start 9-10:30 a.m. while afternoon tours start from noon-1:30 p.m. Tours must be booked in advance, so call 888-764-1402 for scheduling.

8. Charlotte City Brew Tours

Locations vary

Remember all those scary manufacturing statistics we threw at you in the intro to this article? Well, there is some good news to be had out of all that. Thanks to a continuing rise in the popularity of craft beer, boutique sodas, kombuchas, seltzer waters, and ready-to-drink cocktails, the number of US manufacturing firms in the beverages and tobacco space is up 350% over the last 20 years. 

North Carolina is no exception, as Charlotte alone has seen its craft beer scene explode in recent years, going from no breweries to more than 50 in that time. Unsurprisingly, brewery tours have become a popular way to spend a weekend afternoon for those who want to get a behind-the-scenes look at the process behind their favorite beers. 

While most breweries offer such tours on their own time, Charlotte City Brew Tours is a great company to offer a way to hop around and get a glimpse at an array of businesses—from quaint and charming independent nano-breweries to their large-scale regional counterparts. 

The company offers the Original Charlotte Brew Tour, which offers 16 beer samples at four stops over five hours, including a beer-inspired lunch and pairing, comfortable round-trip transportation, behind-the-scenes tours, and interactive lessons in beer history and culture. That tour runs $120 per person. 

Looking for the abbreviated version? The Beer & BBQ Walking Tour includes 12 beer samples across three stops, a local barbecue sandwich, and a scenic walk through South End between stops, along with the aforementioned production tours and interactive lessons. The shorter version lasts about three hours and costs $85 per person. 

9. Ashe County Cheese

106 E. Main St., West Jefferson

Ashe County Cheese was started in 1930 by the Kraft Corporation, which helped consolidate several small community cheese plants in the area and provided the means and expertise to produce cheddar daisy wheels for distribution nationwide. Kraft operated the plant until 1975, when they sold it to then-manager Chesley Hazlewood.

In 2004, the business split into two separate companies. The Ashe County Cheese Company, the plant division, is still owned and operated by Mike Everhart and Tom Torkelson, who bought the original company in 1994 and led it to international renown. The Ashe County Cheese Store, on the other hand, is owned and operated by the Everhart family. Though two separate companies, the businesses work hand in hand to efficiently utilize both work space and personnel.

10 informative AND fun factory tours in North Carolina

Exterior of Ashe County Cheese. (Indy Beetle/CC BY-SA 1.0)

The plant has undergone several upgrades since 1994, and though it still makes old-style cheddar daisy wheels, it now produces a wide variety of cheeses and butter. It has developed a strong following for its original Sienna cheese, its many flavored cheeses, and its newest variety, Juusto cheese (a mild Scandinavian offering).

The Ashe County Cheese viewing room is open year-round at no charge during business hours: Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Visit the cheesemaking calendar on the website to ensure you’ll get to see the real action. 

10. Historic Yates Mill

4620 Lake Wheeler Road, Raleigh

Take a step back in time to what a factory looked like before factories were a thing. Yates Mill is an operable grain mill established around 1756. The equipment in the mill is original, left after the Lea family ceased milling operations in the mid-1950s. 

Tours of this historic space provide an opportunity to learn about an integral aspect of rural life in the early days of settlement in Wake County, and there are plenty of options to choose from. 

Tour options include the Mill Heritage and Local History Tours, a one-hour tour in which visitors explore the inner workings of the mill itself. Corn-grinding demonstrations allow visitors to meet the mill’s historical interpreters and watch the millstones at work grinding corn into meal. Mill open houses are also held most Fridays and Saturdays from March through November. 

Schools, clubs, and other groups may book group tours on weekdays, including the History Detective Tours for children ranging from second through fifth grade and Little Red Hen Tours for students in grades below second. 

While times for the range of tours vary widely, most are held between March and November, and all are free, though a donation is suggested.

This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.10 informative AND fun factory tours in North Carolina10 informative AND fun factory tours in North Carolina

Author

  • Ryan Pitkin

    Ryan Pitkin is a writer and editor based in Charlotte, where he runs an alternative weekly newspaper called Queen City Nerve. He is also editor of NoDa News, a community newsletter in the neighborhood where he has lived for 15 years.

CATEGORIES: THINGS TO DO
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