Sonie and Darren’s mother Joan can trace her family’s interest in the peanut industry back to the early 1900’s when her grandfather selected land in the Home Creek region north of Kingaroy and began to grow peanuts. In these early times peanuts pulled from the ground by hand and processed using stationary thrashing machines.

Joan’s Grandfathers farming enterprise continued for many years to come with techniques and knowledge being handed down through the generations. It is a similar story for Sonie and Darren’s father John Crumpton who worked closely with his father Glyn Crumpton to build the foundations for what is now Australia’s leading peanut business, Crumpton Interstate.

Glyn Crumpton up in Benarkin, to the south of Kingaroy and became a timber pioneer of the region alongside his brother. This partnership continued for a number of years before the men went their separate ways when Glyn married Olga and started his own family, having two sons John and Robert.

It was at this time Glyn moved to the Memerambi area, north of Kingaroy, where he purchased the Memerambi Store which later burnt down. After the loss of his store, Glyn started share farming peanuts and over time saved enough money to purchase his first farm on Booie-Crawford Road near Kingaroy.

When John and Robbie finished school in the 1960’s the family continued farming more intensively by share farming other properties which allowed them to gather enough funds to buy more farms.

In the years that followed, the Crumpton family formed a partnership with Allan and June Ellwood starting a peanut shelling business based at Memerambi. However, once the peanut shelling factory which operated in the old Crawford railway building came up for sale, Glyn, John and Robbie made the decision to purchase the shelling plant and go out on their own.

As the business grew the Crumpton family along with Trevor and Anne Beutel and Howard and Betty Ebneter built the Kingaroy Blanching plant on the current site at Murphy’s Road, Crawford.

When the peanut industry went through a major period of change in 1990’s the Crumpton family made the decision to upgrade their shelling plant to meet the new industry standards at which point all operations were moved to Murphy’s Road.

Since then the plant has continued to grow to now be an industry leading peanut processing plant which includes cold storage, multiple silo’s and a research centre. Sonie and Darren have assisted their father John with the farms and factories during their school years before moving in to full-time positions within the business upon completing school.

Sadly the Crumpton family lost their patriarch Glyn in early 2013, however his work is carried on by his wife Olga, sons Robbie and John along with John’s wife Joan and their sons Darren and Sonie and their respective families.