Macadamia processing in South Africa

Best in class food safe­ty pas­teuri­sa­tion equip­ment has arrived in South Africa, fol­low­ing macadamia pro­cess­ing busi­ness­Green Farms Nut Company’s (GFNC) announce­ment in Feb­ru­ary to invest in the Swiss-engi­neered Napa­sol technology.
“A first for South Africa, this scale of strate­gic com­mit­ment holds long term vision, pay­ing div­i­dends to farm­ers in secur­ing future mar­ket access for macadamias. It under­pins con­fi­dence in sec­tor growth and the South African agri­cul­tur­al indus­try more broadly.”
“Five of the expect­ed sev­en con­tain­ers are in port in South Africa, with the remain­ing two to arrive this month. A new build­ing to sup­port this infra­struc­ture is ready for planned instal­ment and test­ing,” says Allen Dun­can, CEO, GFNC.
Pre­vi­ous­ly, the prob­a­bil­i­ty of harm to human pathogen trans­mis­sion through nuts has been poor­ly under­stood and under­es­ti­mat­ed. Aware­ness of this risk has grown togeth­er, inci­den­tal­ly, with ris­ing con­sump­tion of nuts. Although pas­teuri­sa­tion is not new, it is, how­ev­er, sig­nif­i­cant with­in the con­text of macadamias.
Addi­tion­al­ly, the Napa­so­lis cus­tom built and its process is unique and entire­ly chem­i­cal-free. The U.S. Food & Drug Admin­is­tra­tion has ram­ped­ef­forts to clamp down on prod­ucts enter­ing the coun­try. It man­dates that all almonds con­sumed in the U.S be pas­teurised. Euro­pean reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies will fol­low suit. Col­lec­tive­ly, these geo­gra­phies speak for 80% of SA’s ker­nel (45% is export­ed to the US, with 35% going to Europe).
“We need to pay­heed to this call from reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies, the mar­ket and cus­tomers to avoid sti­fling the macadamia trade. Pow­er­ful lob­by and food sup­ply chain com­plex­i­ty means that not doing so will inevitably close core mar­kets,” com­ments Alex Whyte, sales man­ag­er EMEA, Green & Gold Macadamias.
The geo­graph­i­cal mar­kets of the U.S and Europe are invest­ed in longevi­ty, rela­tion­ships, and trust. They pay a pre­mi­um for qual­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty, and assur­ance. Prod­uct recalls are expen­sive, cause sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to rep­u­ta­tion, and impact through the val­ue chain from cus­tomer to retail­er back to the farmer.
“The ingre­di­ents seg­ment is a huge ver­ti­cal growth mar­ket for macadamias. It is antic­i­pat­ed to play an inte­gral role in long-term sta­bil­i­ty by absorb­ing the grow­ing prod­uct sup­ply. Food man­u­fac­tur­ers will not accept an unpas­teurised prod­uct, this is a huge bar­ri­er to prod­uct devel­op­ment,” con­tin­ues Whyte.
Com­mer­cial farm­ing suc­cess is mate­ri­al­ly linked to mar­ket demand, with­out con­sump­tion the indus­try will cease to exist. Respond­ing to leg­isla­tive, food safe­ty pro­to­col and con­sumer need secures secu­ri­ty and access. This means achiev­ing sus­tain­able prices back on the farm.
Sat­u­rat­ed steam is applied to ker­nels in a par­tial vac­u­um at low tem­per­a­tures, a method that has proven to be most effec­tive at killing Sal­mo­nel­la and oth­er pathogens, at a Log 5 reduc­tion. The oper­a­tion does not wet the nuts and dry­ing is not nec­es­sary, trans­lat­ing to addi­tion­al water and elec­tric­i­ty sav­ings. The prod­uct moves through a ful­ly auto­mat­ed sys­tem in bins through to pack­ag­ing. Remark­ably reduc­ing nut dam­age and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. The raw qual­i­ty of the macadamia ker­nel is pro­tect­ed, and shelf-life is improved.
Fore­most this tech­nol­o­gy places South Africa, already the world’s largest pro­duc­er of macadamias, firm­ly on the world stage of being a reli­able qual­i­ty pro­duc­er and brand­ing South Africa’s macadamias as pre­mi­um and deserv­ing of the best prices. “Sig­nalling con­fi­dence in the domes­tic indus­try, boost­ing infra­struc­ture and pri­vate sec­tor invest­ment into the coun­try. It ensures a direct line to cus­tomers and max­imis­es prof­it back to farm­ers,” con­cludes Dun­can. In its sup­port to the indus­try, GFNC will offer a ser­vice to toll pas­teurise for oth­er macadamia businesses.