How White House Foods Built a Century-Old Business and a Banking Relationship on Trust

When David Gum walked through the doors of National Fruit Product Co. in 1981, he wasn't looking for a career. He was 20 years old, killing time between community college classes and the company needed someone in the accounting department. He figured he'd stay two years, gain some experience and go back to work for his family's business.

Forty-five years later, Gum is the CEO and owner of the company behind the White House Foods brand, one of the best-known names in apple products and vinegar in the country. His path through the organization in a variety of roles set the tone for everything that followed. "It gets in your blood," Gum said of the pull the business had on him. "People around here say our colors are green and yellow, and if you cut them, they bleed green and yellow."

Keeping Independent

Gum spent 25 years working for the Armstrong family, who founded the company in 1908 and built it into a Winchester, Virginia, institution before deciding to sell in the company's third generation. When that moment came in 2006, Gum put his name in the hat and bought the business himself.

Nearly two decades later, he counts keeping the company independent among his proudest accomplishments. "Most of those options were to buy the brand and disperse the company and do different things with it," Gum said. "I'm most proud that we were able to keep it as an independent company."

Today, White House Foods is the largest independently owned apple processing company in the United States and is one of the largest apple growers east of the Rockies. The company is also family owned, with several members of the Gum family working across operations, sales and human resources. "We're proud that we're family owned, and we've got a lot of family that work here," Gum said. "We can say we're proud we've never lost money since having ownership of the company."

The Patience of an Orchard

Ask Gum what running an apple business has taught him about running a business in general, and he'll point you to the orchard. "To plant an apple tree, it's three years old when you plant it," he said. "And then you put it in the ground, and you've got five to seven years before it starts making enough apples to pay for itself." Add in the weather, the disease and the setbacks that can come with farming, the lesson becomes clear: growth takes patience.

That mindset shapes how Gum thinks about the business more broadly. Because White House Foods is privately held, he says, the company isn't beholden to quarterly stock performance. "A lot of things we do are for the long term, so they don't maybe [sic] make sense this year, but they make sense over two or three years," he said.

It's also why the company has invested in equipment and processes that don't always show up on next quarter's balance sheet, like cold-extraction technology that lets White House Foods avoid the synthetic ascorbic acid many competitors use to brighten their products. "We're proud that we're the only label out there that doesn't have ascorbic acid in it," Gum said. "That means a lot to us."

Investing in People

For a company built on decades-long timelines, Gum said the biggest lesson of growth is a simple one: it happens through people. "Everything's easy on paper," he said. "But at the end of the day, you've got to get all that accomplished through people, and people are interesting. The biggest lesson is you always have to be engaged and in touch with your people, because that's who's going to make it all happen."

That philosophy shows up in the culture at White House Foods, where longtime employees, including a compliance officer in his 70s and an HR department run by two retirees, are given the flexibility to keep contributing well past when other companies might expect them to step aside. Gum says the goal is transparency at every level, including sharing financial performance with employees so they understand how their work connects to the company's results. "David, you act like you own this company," people used to tell him before he became the owner. "I always took it as the biggest compliment," he said.

Why a Long-Term Banking Partner Matters

That same patience and focus on relationships shapes how Gum thinks about the company's finances. "For us, I want a bank that's engaged with your business, that understands your business, so they invest in that engagement, the relationship and they're stable," he said, describing what he looks for in a banking partner. "You don't have a new relationship manager every year or so. Stability and engagement."

Gum has worked with Jen McDermott, his Atlantic Union Bank relationship manager, for roughly eight years. It's a relationship that started at a Chamber event and grew from there. "It's also been learning not only about his business, but learning about his family," Jen said. "We've just really dialed down what's important, not only in the business and our relationship, but the relationship he has with his family and the legacy he's going to build."

Gum has had other banking relationships over the years, including with a large national bank, but that relationship wasn't the right fit for a company built on generational thinking. "It always was important for me to know the top of the bank," he said. "I want to know who's running the bank and if it's going to be the same person tomorrow as it is today. Atlantic Union is stable in their management team and stable in their purpose."

Beyond stability, Gum points to concrete support, like treasury solutions that helped the company respond to a wire fraud attempt before it could cause serious damage. "We were able to intercept it and shut it down so the fraud didn't happen," he said.

For Jen, the relationship comes down to genuine investment in her clients' success. "I don't want to just be a random banker," she said. "It really comes down to that relationship and genuinely caring about their success. I'm like a cheerleader. I want them to be successful. I want their family to be successful."

Building Something Meant to Last

At 118 years old, White House Foods is still investing in what comes next, from a national apple butter launch to new product development guided in part by Gum's ten grandchildren, who serve as informal taste testers for new flavors. Gum's son now runs the company's agricultural operations, one daughter leads social media and product development and another oversees sales, a next generation already engaged in the business he never set out to lead.

Asked what he hopes to preserve as the company looks toward its next century, Gum comes back to the same idea that has guided the business since 1908. "We always want to make something that's good for you," he said. "We want the White House brand to be something that's generationally consumed."

It's the kind of long view that, Gum says, only works with partners willing to take it alongside you. "Having someone who understands your business, understands how you operate, shares those values and is engaged with you is extremely important," he said.