When you see a guy climb out of his car and smash a watermelon after he wins a NASCAR Cup race, it’s easy to shrug that off as a gimmick. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that Ross Chastain is a passionate representative of the watermelon industry with a long-standing heritage in agriculture. Chastain’s family has been farming since 1700. That’s not a typo. The Chastains arrived in Virginia in 1700 as part of a group of French Huguenots immigrating to the American colonies. Farming then was necessity. Now, it’s big business, and Ross has become one of the most recognizable spokesmen for the watermelon industry.
Having grown up working on his family’s 400-acre watermelon farm in Alva, Florida, it was a natural progression for Ross to become a partner in Melon 1, the oldest and largest watermelon grower, packer, and shipper in the United States. With a network of over 2 dozen partner farms across the US and Central America, Melon 1 is able to produce and deliver watermelons year-round. Ross’ uncle, Richard Chastain, is one of the three co-owners who have run the brokerage since 1999, alongside the Dicks and Lapide families, who founded the company in 1935. When Hamilton Dicks retired last year, Ross stepped up to fill the seat.
