Somewhere in southern Illinois lies the city of Collinsville, population 24,707, and this city has turned promotion of its horseradish industry into an art form. First, the facts: while Silver Spring in Eau Claire is the largest single grower and producer of horseradish in the world, the farmland surrounding Collinsville has the most acreage devoted to horseradish. Unlike Silver Spring, Collinsville does not produce its own horseradish products, and instead sells them to other producers (like Kraft, for example, and even Silver Springs, who supplement the local stock with Collinsville crop).

In terms of reputation, though, Collinsville has worked very hard to equate their name with horseradish. A few of their claims are a little shady; they often cite the statistic that they grow 85 percent of the world’s horseradish, while a quick check of the USDA Farm Census reveals that they grow considerably less than that in the country, much less the world. They have trademarked the moniker “World’s Horseradish Capital,” which does not require any sort of backing. Altoona could go out right now and trademark “Global Capital of Foot Fungus” without providing any evidence as to the scope or severity of their populace’s actual fungal afflictions.

Despite a few dubious claims, the city has done an incredible job of branding itself through horseradish. They host the annual International Horseradish Festival, featuring horseradish games, giant horseradish balloons (click on the one above), and a Little Miss Horseradish Pageant. While it all sounds a little bit like a Christopher Guest movie, you cannot type “horseradish” into an internet search engine without finding some mention of Collinsville ...

Check out next week’s issue of Volume One Magazine for a positively riveting feature story on our spicy local horseradish scene, as well as an interview with Michael Pamatot, who’s basically the horseradish king of Collinsville, Ill.