The Nut Factory : Kitchen : Trivia : Almonds

Trivia about Almonds

At The Nut Factory, we are also a converter and food processing plant. We purchase almonds from several of the 10,000 orchards found in California.

In 1999-2000 the almond crop crossed 830 million pounds, a record. Just to show you the growth, in 1997 the worldwide crop exceeded 730 million pounds. In some years the crop shrinks to as little as 450 million pounds, but that is on an off-year. I can remember that, in 1982, the crop was only about 325 million pounds and that was normal. That is how much the worldwide production and consumption has grown in the last 16 years.

While 85% of the world crop is from California, Spain often produces 80 million pounds in strong years which is over 7% of the crop and the rest of the almonds grow in other Mediterranean countries. The Mediterranean almond variety is known as the Jordan almond. It is rounder and looks most like our Mission almond but tastes as rich as the Nonpareil variety.

Our California varieties are called Nonpareil, Caramel, Neplus and Mission. We use the Mission variety for sliced almonds at The Nut Factory. Nonpareils and Caramels are roasted and used in our mixes. Another variety called the Peerless is only used as a paper thin-shelled nut sold in supermarkets in-the-shell. It is a wonderful almond for cracking and snacking, but the crop is usually sold out by Thanksgiving.

If you are using almonds for coating products with a hard glazed sugar coating, you will want the Mission variety because the almond is rounder and looks better. If you are glazing with a powdered sugar coating, you would probably use the Caramel. The Neplus is used the least and is mostly for dicing in our industry. The Nonpareil is always our best almond and in the most demand. It is shaped like a pendant with a flat triangle shape and is the highest priced.

When the almond crop is large, the trees produce many blooms and the abundant harvest yields more and smaller nuts. The opposite is true in the years when the crop is scarce. Then the fewer nuts are much larger because the tree has fewer flowers to feed, so they grow larger.

At The Nut Factory, our almonds come in these sizes:

16-18 largest and the fewest per pound
19-22 a large size in demand
23-25 a medium size and the size available this year when the crop is huge
26-29 also extremely available but small and priced a bit lower because much of the crop left is in that size
30-32 a very small size often used by Hershey and other candy companies in their candy bars because they coat them with chocolate and the very small size works well for them in individual chocolate bars.

February is the month that the almond trees bloom in California. The trees go through pollination. The orchardists rent bee hives to fly in the orchards and pollinate the almond flowers. If the weather is rainy, the bees will not fly and the orchards will have fewer almond blooms. Fewer blooms yield fewer almonds and we get a smaller almond crop.

The bees start by pollinating the Neplus trees the first week of February, then the other varieties, and finally the Nonpareils during the last week of February. If the temperatures dip below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, then the bees won't fly and the whole process is delayed into March (if it happens at all). It is a very nervous time for the owners of the orchards.

Once the blooms set and the flowers open in April or May, the first crop estimates come out. That is done by counting the buds on a small number of trees in many areas of the state and drawing an estimate. It is about 90% correct and gives everybody a good idea of the crop size.

Large cops drive down prices and free the crop from the previous year that was held in storage waiting for higher prices. If the crop looks small, hoarding and higher prices appear immediately. Any bad weather from this point onward that will hurt the crop, causing the price to climb.

So, in February, it is hard for a seller to price a buyer. If a seller is under price pressure to liquidate their inventory to pay off loans, or if a seller simply wants to clear their inventory and concentrate on the next crop - then you can find a sale. Otherwise it is harder to buy almonds until the crop comes off the trees in mid-August. Many users have booked a year's supply at opening prices, but people like us often are open and need to shop for their inventory. We have only one more almond load on contract which we will use during March. Then we will have April, May, June and July open for spot purchases. The price will vary because it is affected by the walnut and pecan markets. Bakeries use both of them instead of almonds, and it can cause the United states market to further rise or fall as these crops change. The February and March hazelnut crop blooms in Turkey will affect the European future nut markets during this period also. Walnuts are in a downward move, Turkish filberts are rising, and pecans are steady to firmer in price so almonds have remained steady without much change of price during January, 1998.

We roast the almonds at 325 degrees in vegetable oil for about 15-20 minutes, but we are using commercial stainless steel machinery. You might take longer, but when the almonds turn a light ivory color from the white color inside, it is time to take them out of the oil and drain them as they cool.

We then salt the almonds using a 50% flour and 50% salt mixture which is available from the Morton Salt people especially for firms like ours.

The flour helps the salt hang onto the nuts. The nuts are best to salt immediately after they come out of the oil because they will hold the salt best at this time. If you salt them later, they will not hold the salt as well. You never salt them before you deep toast them because all the salt would come off.

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