The Tennessee Company Behind Cracker Barrel's Famous Pancakes And Biscuits

When you visit Cracker Barrel, there are a few iconic foods on the menu that seem to represent the brand's Southern culinary roots. These include the chain's pancakes, which hold numerous spots in our ranking of the best Cracker Barrel breakfast items, and biscuits, which also keep customers coming back. The ingredients used to make these menu items are sourced from one Tennessee company that plays a large part in Cracker Barrel's ability to make appealing comfort food.

Shenandoah Mills Inc., located in Lebanon, Tennessee, is a dry mix blender and packager that produces numerous products, including pancake, biscuit, and cornbread mixes, breading and batters, gravy bases, and custom dry mixes for Cracker Barrel. It has also served Long John Silvers, Captain D's, Hillshire Farms, and Sara Lee. The company started in 1990 when it was purchased by Dale Nunnery from the flour and cornmeal producer, Martha White Foods. 

Shenandoah Mills has numerous practices that make its products stand out. It uses high-quality grains that are milled to be consistent, and the blended dry ingredients also rise in a consistent manner. In addition, Shenandoah Mills Inc. embodies values that, according to Cracker Barrel, creates "the kind of company built, not on mass-production mindset, but on doing one thing, and doing it very, very well."

There's a reason the pancakes and biscuits at Cracker Barrel are so popular. Shenandoah Mills' products follow a formula that has been developed through a partnership with Cracker Barrel that takes into account what diners want, including the classic buttermilk taste. In a basic buttermilk pancake recipe, the buttermilk gives the batter a unique tang and creamy flavor due to its lactic acid and reacts with baking soda to make pancakes fluffy. As one reviewer on Reddit raved, "When I go out for pancakes I go [to] Cracker Barrel. I think most diner pancakes are too thick. Cracker Barrel does them right."

Cracker Barrel's buttermilk biscuits are classic Southern comfort food, made fresh using special tools, cutters, and biscuit ovens every day. It's important to use buttermilk in biscuits to create the fluffy texture and better taste, and doing so was perfected in the Southern U.S. So, when Cracker Barrel founder Dan Evans wanted to create a rest stop offering comfort food with Southern tradition, buttermilk biscuits were on the menu. Since the mixes are currently produced by Shenandoah Mills Inc. and crafted daily at Cracker Barrel, the restaurant's concept of partnering with Shenandoah Mills has been successful in making the restaurant chain's menu truly Southern and unique.