In the last post, we were able to see the three step almond harvesting process. This week, we continue on the journey of the almond to the huller/sheller and almond processor. There are multiple steps that almonds take postharvest, and hopefully this will help you appreciate your next batch of almonds a little bit more! All of the footage shown below was taken at RPAC Almonds and Parreira Almond Processing Company in Los Banos, California.
Table of Contents
How Are Almonds Sold?
Almonds are sold in three different forms:
- Whole Natural – Plain kernel
- In-Shell – The outer hull has been removed, but the kernel is left inside the shell
- Processed – Where any further processing has been performed to the kernel, such as blanching, roasting, slicing or dicing
Almond Pre-Cleaning
Once the almonds arrive at the facility, they are unloaded from the trailer, with an initial sorting to remove soil and grass from the field.
The almonds then pass through a pre-cleaning phase. The almond pre-cleaner consists of three steps that the almonds pass through before entering the huller.
- De-sticker – The de-sticker separates out the large sticks, so that the sticks stay on top of the chain of the machinery and the almonds fall through to the next machine. There are sand screens that shake out the fine soil and the nuts and bigger soil clumps pass down to the de-stoner.
- De-stoner – The de-stoner works off of positive air and vibration to separate the soil clods from the almonds, and then the almonds pass to the de-twigger.
- De-twigger – The de-twigger then gets the small twigs out of the mixture. The large stickers were separated out during the first step.
After the pre-cleaning phase, each load of almonds goes into a storage tank until they are ready to be ran through the huller (only one load is run at a time). Each lot that is brought in on a trailer is tagged with grower and harvest information and they can use that information to follow the almonds throughout the entire hulling and processing operation for trace back purposes.
Almond Hulling & Shelling
The hulling and shelling plant is where they take the product from the field, clean it, hull it, shell it, and remove most of the foreign material. There is also an aspiration system that is running throughout this facility to control any potential issues with dust. The piping runs along the ceiling to suck up as much dust as possible, and then releases the dust to a truck outside of the facility, where it is recycled and used in landfills (offsetting the need for excavation).
There are a lot of steps that go into removing the hull and shell from the almonds. In total, there are 8 different steps. However, once the hulls and shells have been removed, the kernels will skip the additional steps and pass through to the end step.
At the start of the process (stage 1), there are 3 separate machines that all attempt to crack the hulls and separate them out from the kernels. The almonds are spread out equally among the three machines, which have counter-rotating belts to remove the hulls.
During stage 2, it is the same idea, where the nuts are spread out equally among the machines, but the machines in this stage work to target smaller and smaller nuts as they progress through the machines. When the hulls are removed, the nuts are transported on bucket elevators to the end of the packing line and bypass the additional separation steps.
At the very end of the process, the kernels are taken to the meat deck to further separate out the kernels from everything else, using screens and positive air flow. The hulls and shells are separated and then the kernels are sent to the bucket elevators to be bulk packed into bins.
USDA Almond Sampling
As the almonds are being packed into the bins, a random sample is taken of each lot for USDA grading purposes. This step is completed in order to determine the quality of nuts received by the different growers (for their compensation), as well as to be reviewed by the USDA inspector each week during their visit.
All grading is done in the quality control lab, where highly trained staff and an electronic machine sort out a 500g sample. The samples are checked for size and for any foreign material or defects, such as insect damage. Innovation, such as the electronic scanning equipment, enables the grading time to move much quicker.
This quality control room is also used for samples that are taken at the end of the processing/handling step. Those samples are for internal use, so they know exactly what is in each bin and where they do the final grading to determine which batch meets each customer’s specifications.
Almond In-Shell Packing
The in-shell packing line was not running the day of my visit, but you can still get an idea of the process from the pictures below. About 15% of RPAC’s product goes to this line, and this is where the end result is a kernel that is still in-shell, although the outer hull has been removed.
The in-shell packing process is as follows:
- Sorting – The in-shell almonds go up an elevator into a screening deck to get rid of any twigs or foreign material and through an aspirating system to pull out any loose shells or hulls.
- Optical Sorting – The almonds pass through an optical sorting machine to sort out most types of foreign material or nuts that still have the hull attached
- Metal Detector – The almonds then pass through a metal detector and are packed
- Packing – The final product is packed into bulk bins or 50 pound bags (where the bags are pulled tight and sewed up on the line) that are palletized and shrink wrapped for shipment
Almond Processing
Both RPAC and Perreira Almond Processing Company are located on one site. Parreira Almond Processing Company operates the hulling/shelling operation and RPAC runs the processing and marketing operation.
During the processing step, the bins of almonds that have already gone through the huller and sheller enter the processor in bulk bins and pass through the following steps:
- Bin Dump – The almonds are filtered to remove any additional field debris.
- Optical Sorting – They go through three different optical sorters. The first two optical sorters are the same and remove any kernels that fail to meet customer specifications, while the third works a bit differently: the almonds that get blown backwards are the rejects and the ones that move forward gravitationally are of good quality and proceed.
- Sorting by Size – The kernels are then sorted based on the size of nuts. As you can see in the pictures below, there are 8 different sizes in which the nuts are sorted.
- Packing – They are then bulk packed into bin-sized bags, sampled and sealed. All product is then stored inside at room temperature until they are sent out for shipment.
- Quality Control – The sampling before the final seal on the bulk bins is an internal quality control step that is used to grade and market the product. A sampling probe is used to gather a sampling size from each bin, which is taken into the quality control lab to be graded based on the quality of the almonds. This grading is then attached to the bin, along with all of the other tracking information, and is used to market the product to each customer’s unique specifications.
This process demonstrates the bulk packing steps. However, the almonds can also be packed into smaller sizes. This processor does not pack for the final consumer, so there is no packing into small retail packs.
Almond Processing Video
The video below shows an overview of the entire almond pre-cleaning, hulling/shelling and processing operation.
What About the Pasteurization Step?
All almond kernels sold in the United States are required to be pasteurized before they can enter the market. This is not required if the almonds go on to further processing (e.g., roasting, blanching, slicing, etc.), or if they are sold in-shell. The pasteurization step does not occur at this processor because only about 5% of the product they produce will be sold as whole kernels into the United States market. The rest of their product is either exported, further processed or goes onto another facility that completes the pasteurization step.
Sustainability
Sustainability plays a large role in the growing, harvesting and processing of almonds as well. All of the excess soil, sticks, rock, any other field debris, and hulls are recycled and repurposed. For example, at this operation, the excess soil is used to fill in abandoned canals, at the landfill so they do not have to excavate good soil, and to build up livestock/dairy pins, while the sticks are ground up and used for livestock bedding, and the hulls are used to replace low grade alfalfa hay and corn silage (saving approximately 900,000 acre feet of water that would be used to grow the hay and corn separately).
Featured Grower Information
I would like to send a big thank you to RPAC Almonds and Parreira Almond Processing Company for the tour and for allowing the gathered content to be shared. If you would like to learn more about their operation, you can check out their website and can even take your own virtual tour of the hulling, shelling and processing facilities.
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hey, I would like to thank you for this guide, great job.
Thank you, Arcana! I really appreciate it!
Hi, could I use your picture in my almond paper?
Please send me a request!
Thanks.
Hi, I do not give permission for any of my photos to be used in any postings or papers. If you have any additional questions, please reach out to me directly via my contact page at: https://www.theproducenerd.com/contact/. Thank you.
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Hi, absolutely a very good article for the beginners . I really appreciate such a helping guide line. Thank you very much.