What Makes a Pickle a Pickle? The Internet Needs Answers

On a normal Saturday afternoon, Jesse Banwell decided to make some sandwiches for his kids. Inspired, his youngest wanted to practice writing the word “pickle” on a piece of paper. So Banwell reached for the jar and handed it to his son, but to both of their surprise, “pickle” was nowhere to be found on the label. Instead, the Claussen-brand jar said, “Kosher Dill Sandwich Slices.” Banwell turned the jar over and looked at the lid. Once again, there was no mention of “pickle.” So he ran back to his refrigerator and pulled out another jar — what appeared to be Mt. Olive pickles — but the label read, “Mt. Olive Kosher Hamburg Dill Chips.” A quick Google search revealed that Claussen and Mt. Olive weren’t alone. Both Vlasic and B&G, two other majorly popular pickle brands, also don't include the word “pickle” on their labels. 

This pickle puzzle may not be universal — it’s in the name for Grillo’s Pickles and McClure’s Pickles, and B&G occasionally uses the word (like for its “Pickle in a Pouch”) — but in the case of Claussen, Mt. Olive, and Vlasic, Banwell was left wondering if what they are selling are even pickles at all. 

Banwell, a Washington-based science teacher, shared this story on Tiktok, and the video quickly blew up, many calling it “picklegate.” His comments were flooded with theories and opinions. Some were positive that the word “pickle” refers to how the product is processed, not the food product itself. Others became convinced that the crunchy green spears should be technically referred to as cucumbers instead of pickles. 

“Everyone who wrote that, I guarantee, calls them pickles,” says Banwell. “You don’t go into a McDonald’s and say, ‘I want extra cucumbers on my Big Mac. They wouldn’t know what you were talking about.” 

But the majority, Banwell included, believed that Claussen, Mt. Olive, and Vlasic may be hiding something — that perhaps their lack of specifying the word pickle indicates a secret that could destroy “Big Pickle” as we know it. Maybe these pickles aren’t pickles at all. 

What exactly are pickles anyway?

Before we can confirm or deny this pickle conspiracy (a “pickle-spear-acy,” if you will), we first must define what is and isn’t a pickle. According to the USDA United States Standards for Grades of Pickles, a pickle must be made “entirely or predominantly from cucumbers.” 

The cucumbers must be preserved, either through fermentation or the direct addition of vinegar. Therefore, pickling is a process — many foods can be pickled, but to be called “a pickle," the ingredient mixture must be mostly cucumber. If the ingredients being pickled do not include cucumber, then they should be referred to as “pickled,” like “pickled okra,” for example.

The major quantitative standard is that the pickle must have an equilibrated pH of 4.6 or below and that pH “must be maintained for the storage life of the product.” With these relatively simple standards, it should be pretty easy to get a straight answer from Claussen, Mt. Olive, and Vlasic on whether or not their products are, in fact, pickles, right? 

Wrong.

The complicated and confusing issue of space

In an attempt to clear the air, all three pickle brands have released statements as to why their brands avoid using the word “pickle,” and their answers are … confusing.

“When pickle lovers see the clear Vlasic jar, they know they’re getting a great tasting pickle every time,” says Vlasic brand manager Carolyn Goldberger. “Because of the wide variety of our pickle forms, we use the limited label space to clearly communicate the form and flavor inside each jar. That way, consumers can easily find their favorite Vlasic. But no matter the style, it's definitely a pickle!”

According to TODAY.com, Mt. Olive had a similar response, stating that because you can clearly see that there are pickles inside the glass jar, they do not feel it is necessary to say the word “pickle.” They also noted that they chose to “use the front label to focus on the variety — the cut and flavor — of the pickle inside the jar.” 

A representative from Claussen hit on the same beats. “Claussen is known for its signature refrigerated pickles that pack a superior cold crunch,” a spokesperson said. “While the brand meets all regulations required of pickles, they prefer to showcase their varying styles and varieties on-pack, such as fan-favorite dill spears and bread & butter slices.”

At first glance, these all seem like logical answers. The USDA specifications for making pickles don’t seem too complicated after all. But the more time me and the Food & Wine team sat with them, the more perplexed we became. 

I get the point they’re making about being able to see the product inside the glass jar — most of us know what a pickle looks like. But there are tons of food products that you can clearly see that are still labeled … packs of bacon, cartons of raspberries, and bags of bread, for instance. And as far as label space goes, Claussen, Mt. Olive, and Vlasic all have very clean, organized branding. There is so much space to play with, and yet, they still choose to cut the word, “pickle.” 

Strangely, Vlasic does make one product that uses the word “pickle”: Purely Pickles. I asked Goldberger what made Purely Pickles different from their normal jars, and she replied, “The Vlasic Purely Pickles line is a subline of our broader pickles. This line was designed to be a more clean label than the rest of our products. There’s no special reason we say pickles on them other than ‘Purely Pickles’ is a fun, catchy naming convention.” First off, why make an entirely different label for the same product? And secondly, this statement completely contradicts Vlasic’s initial point — that there is simply no room on the label to say “pickle,” because in the case of “Purely Pickles,” the label is more “clean.” 

To be fair, when I asked Goldberger how Vlasic’s pickle-making process fits the requirement of a pickle, their answer made complete sense. “As soon as we put cucumbers into a brine, the pickling process has begun,” she said. “Vlasic pickles are considered pickles once they are jarred and labeled.” However, when I asked the representative from Claussen the same question, they declined to respond. 

Putting the pickles to the test

Still convinced that the pickle jar conspiracy goes way deeper, I did the only thing I could to definitively test whether or not a cucumber meets the legal requirements of being a certified pickle: a pH test. I tested all three pickle brands in question, in addition to B&G, Boar’s Head, and Saul Blanc, and every jar came in under 4.6. Claussen’s Kosher dill minis were the least acidic at 4.13, and Saul Blanc had the highest acidity at 3.57. 

I also reached out to the FDA to ask about the labeling requirements for pickles. “The FDA has not evaluated whether a particular pickle product or products satisfies labeling requirements,” said Enrico Dinges, a media representative from the FDA. “Federal law requires all food in packaged form to bear a statement of identity of the commodity in terms one of the following: the name specified in or required by any applicable Federal law or regulation, if such name exists; if no such name exists, the common or usual name of the food; if neither of the preceding exist, an appropriately descriptive terms, or when the nature of the food is obvious, a fanciful name commonly used by the public for such food.”  

This answer leaves room for a lot of interpretation and question marks. There are legal requirements for pickles (as mentioned before), but the FDA does not evaluate whether a pickle meets these requirements. Because of this, pickle companies currently don’t need to say the word “pickle” on a label for it to be legally considered a pickle, since, thanks to the transparent glass jar, “the nature of the food is obvious.”

A dissatisfying conclusion

We have come to a standstill. As far as we can see, Claussen, Vlasic, and Mt. Olive’s unlabeled pickle products are, in fact, pickles. They appear to be held in a brine, they have a pH below 4.6, and, from what the FDA says, they have no legal requirement to state the word “pickle” on their label. 

So we’re just left wondering, why exclude the word “pickle” at all? Does it really just come down to label space? “I don’t believe their reason,” Banwell says. “But at the same time, I don’t think that there’s anything to it other than that it’s just a weird coincidence or choice that someone made in the past.” 

Ultimately, we may never know the secrets that lie deep within the pickle jar. But if you like a certain type of pickle, keep on buying and eating them — it’s not a big dill.