The walnut business has its own seasonality, so everyone is looking forward to the new season and fresh harvest. There is a large volume of fresh walnuts on the market and everyone, from summer residents to exporters, makes money on it.
Freshly harvested walnuts have a high moisture content, due to which the walnut is elastic and after cracking the shell and kernel are held together. On the one hand, such elasticity is a plus – with small volumes, the walnut can be peeled by hand and the maximum yield of the whole kernel can be obtained.
On the other hand, with industrial volumes and processing on equipment, processors are faced with the fact that sorting equipment is not able to perform its work efficiently. As a consequence, manual force has to be used, which is costly and time consuming.
Before processing on equipment, the walnut must be dried. Drying the walnut is a mandatory step, it is recommended to carry it out immediately after harvesting and washing. With manual processing, walnuts can be processed immediately after harvesting and then the already peeled kernel can be dried.
You can dry walnuts in their shells naturally or using industrial dryers. In the first case, drying takes from 5 to 12 days, depending on weather conditions, requires space and effort. Industrial dryers dry the walnut in 12-24 hours, that is, the walnut is ready for processing, storage or sale the very next day after harvesting.
Using industrial dryers, walnut processing can be started already in September, without wasting time and having a huge sales market – the demand for new harvest walnuts always exceeds supply.