News

Apple Wedge Packers reopening a bright spot in a bad season

Apple Wedge Packers President Greg Nix holds his 1-year-old grandson Landry Kehoe while he visited with family, friends and coworkers during the reopening of his packing house.

By Amy McCraw, Published: October 29, 2025

Apple Wedge Packers President Greg Nix smiled Friday evening as he watched friends, family and coworkers arrive for a celebration at his newly rebuilt packing house in Edneyville.

“I’m glad to see all these people,” he said as a bluegrass band standing on a semitruck’s flatbed trailer struck up a tune just outside the new building. “I’m glad to see everyone here.”
As he visited with guests while they enjoyed the music along food and drinks in an area outside the new facility, Nix reflected on the months since the Jan.31 fire that destroyed his packing house on Bearwallow Road.
The wind-driven fire started outdoors in apple boxes and quickly spread inside the packing house.
Once the magnitude of the fire was known, dispatchers issued an “all-call” for mutual aid, activating all 12 fire departments in the county, plus Hendersonville plus departments in Buncombe, Transylvania and Polk counties — 22 departments in all and around 150 firefighters. Even so, there was little they could do to save the structure and contents from the conflagration.
Nix said the first thing he did when he saw the flames was make sure all his employees and family members working at the packing house were safe.
Then, he said he sat down on bank nearby and prayed.
“I said, ‘Lord, it’s in your hands. I’m not going to question,’” Nix said.
Mike Miller, one the firefighters who battled the blaze at the packing house, returned for the reopening celebration.
The new building, equipment and gravel parking lot looked much improved from the mess he saw the day of the fire.
“We couldn’t see most of it there was so much smoke,” Miller said. “This is quite nice considered what it was.”
Nix, 66, grew up in Edneyville and has been farming apples since he was 19 years old.
“I’ve been doing this my whole life,” he said.
His commitment to the apple industry and his business grew over the years with his family joining long-time workers in the orchards and his packing house.
“My workers are very much like family,” he said, noting that at least one employee has been with him for 36 years.
Nix said he briefly discussed with his wife the possibility of closing his business but never seriously considered the idea of not reopening.
“She said, ‘If you told me that’s what you wanted to do, I would have called the funeral home,’” Nix said with a laugh as he remembered his wife’s reaction to the prospect of closing.
Nix began working on getting new equipment and coming up with plans for a rebuilt packing house on the Monday after the fire.
He said he was fortunate to work with good people who helped him put in the physical and mental labor required to rebuild.
As a result of the hard work, the packing house was able to open with a new metal building and new equipment in October.
But the new equipment remained silent and still in the building on Friday evening. There would be time for work later, after Nix and his community finished celebrating how much they accomplished in the last nine months.