STRIKING GOLD: A duck hunter's accidental discovery revives a prized heirloom rice.

• Author: Saylor, Teri

What do you get when you blend NASCAR, duck hunting, and agricultural innovation? The answer is Carolina Gold rice, a prized heritage crop that's growing in popularity.

Tommy Wheeler, a retired NASCAR manager with Roush Fenway Racing, calls his resurrection of Carolina Gold rice a happy accident, which came about during his pursuit of a crop he could grow economically to attract the ducks he hunts in Pamlico County.

Wheeler, who grew up in Oriental, and his lifelong friend and farmer, Al Spruill, formed the Killing Cans Hunt Club for their friends and family years ago. "Cans" is a nickname for canvasback ducks.

"At the time we maintained an impoundment where we would grow corn in the spring and summer to attract ducks and then flood the area in the fall and winter," he said in a phone interview from a food trade show in Chicago.

Over time, the small hunting club had doubled in size and associated costs grew as well.

"It became so expensive that suddenly we were going to have to take on more members or raise hunt club dues to make this financially work out," Wheeler says. He and Spruill began seeking types of crops to replace the corn.

It was on duck hunting trips to Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana where the two friends spotted rice growing operations. Intrigued, Wheeler learned that North Carolina had been a major rice producer centuries ago, but the crop had died out over time.

He started researching the possibilities of reviving the crop with experts from North Carolina State University. Along the way he learned that while growing rice for ducks would be more expensive than corn, it could be a profitable product to market.

After consulting with the Carolina Gold Foundation, Wheeler and Spruill decided to grow Carolina Gold rice, a heirloom variety highly sought after by restaurants and foodies. They formed the Tidewater Grain Co. in 2018.

Today, the company is going strong, selling Carolina Gold rice by the bag and the bucket online and in a few restaurants and retail outlets across the state.

While Spruill continues farming in Pamlico County, Wheeler lives in Rowan County, where he set up the company's milling, packaging and distribution facility.

"We do the milling and distribution here to manage the risk associated with maintaining our harvested rice crops out there in hurricane county," he said. "And Rowan County is a better (location for a) distribution center, located along major highways leading to East Coast markets and North...