We started working on the 2010 pine nut harvest the middle of June. I want to thank the ranchers and private land owners in the Southwest who have called and emailed us about harvesting, together with The Nevada Cattlemen's Association, albeit, the cattlemen are strange bedfellows for us.
George and I spent a good deal of time on the ground in the Southwest, thank goodness! Saturday August 28th, I was again out in the woods, scoping coning of soft shell pine nuts. There will be a harvest. Last year, we saw close to 200,000 lbs of soft shell Nevada pinenuts come out of the forest. It was a banner year. This year, pickings are slim - very slim, for the soft shell harvest. When the rains do not arrive at the proper times, the cones dry up, turn brown and drop.
Saturday I was scoping, with two young woman (ages 14 and 15) . I cannot tell what a joy it was to share with them and how eagerly they soaked up the information I had to share. I taught the young woman, to pray before harvest and give thanks, to never take without giving and sing to trees as a means for expressing the joy and appreciation for the harvest. These are the natural laws.
Hard shell New Mexico Harvest. The Colorado areas we saw were heavy with blight and beetle kill. The forests in the Four Corner's area were sick, very sick. There will be no harvest there for many years. We went to areas all over New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah to find harvest ground and we did.
This year, Goods From The Woods clients will have pine nuts. However, we are harvesting later this year. The longer the nuts can stay in the cones, the better the nuts. The very first nuts that come off the trees are not best. We are choosing to wait. To make this up to our clients, we are giving free gifts with 10 lb soft shell orders, including cotton draw string bags, free hickory nut samples, pinon essential oil and other goodies. We want folks to have the opportunity to try our sister company's products.
A Wild Crops Farm is George Frazier's enterprise, while Goods From The Woods, belongs to Penny Frazier. The two companies are a marriage, with George harvesting and distilling certified organic floral waters, hickory nuts, and other Missouri harvests, while I focus out west on pine nuts. Life is good, I am grateful to another pine nut harvest and hope our clients understand, the labors of love that bring them their products.]]>
Pockets of pinon cone here and there for the American pine nut harvest 2010
Pockets of pinon cone here and there for the American pine nut harvest 2010
Original post blogged on pinenut.com.
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# 1 Supply
# 2 Demand
Most foodies know their pine nuts are coming from China. There was a poor harvest in 2009. The price of pine nuts FOB China was seen as high as 43,000.00 USD per Metric Ton. It had gone down to $37,000.00 per metric ton and much of the pricing depended on the pine nut species. The same pine nuts were $7,000.00 - 13,000.00 per metric ton a few years ago. Basically, the price per pound of pine nuts has tripled over the last few years.
The Siberian species sells for less than the Korean one. (Siberian pine nuts are very much like the New Mexico Pine Nut species). However, given the global demand - the Siberian pine nuts being much less expensive than the Korean ones - the cheaper pine nut supply was exhausted. Large importers order in advance of the harvest and place their contracts early. There are about a half of dozen global agro-businesses which import pine nuts. The agro business importers thought the price increase was too much and purchased less than they might normally, hoping the price would go down. Those importers ran out of pine nuts and had to restock at higher rates. The least expensive pine nuts were sold out, therefore in restocking the importers needed to reorder the higher priced species. That, coupled with the change in currency is spiking the cost of pine nuts.
There is another factor in increase in the pine nut price. There had be price supports for exporters of pine nuts. Those were withdrawn and exporting cost rose a good deal. There is more of an incentive for pine nut producers in China to offer their wares within the country rather than export. People in China love pine nuts as do people in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. I even had a call yesterday for pine nuts in South America. (Our phone rang off the hook yesterday - thus my motivation to answer some of the common questions about the pine nut market with the blog.)
As I see it, the rising cost of pine nuts ties into the pine nut mouth. There is such a huge demand for pine nuts, that I believe the harvests are starting too early. This in turn maybe contributing to the expanding problem of pine nut mouth. Additionally, non-traditional species of pine nuts may be mixed in with traditional ones. HOWEVER, the issue of pine nut mouth is a new problem and pine nuts have been around for 10,000 years. There is no recorded record of people having bitter tastes after consuming pine nuts over those milinum. People have gathered wild pine nuts as part of their diets for thousands of years, and the species they ate depended upon where they lived.
Watching all of these factors come together, helped Pinenut.com plan for a shelled American pine nut. Until the prices rose, it simply was not economically feasible. I love to being able to offer our clients American pine nuts for $10.00 per pound. We don't really want to be in the pine nut shelling business. That is where the American pine nut sheller comes in. (Yesterday, we took three orders for 2010 pine nut contracts with our free pine nut sheller.) Until August, we are only going to sell 25 one thousand pound contracts for pine nuts @ $10.00 per pound. I know I can get 25,000 lbs of pine nuts to fill the contracts, but I might not be able to get say, 50,000 lbs of pine nuts to fill the orders for 50 free pine nut shellers.
There are only a handful of pine nut harvesters in the United States for the Jumbo soft shell. There is a limit to how much each of the pickers can pick during our pine nut season AND because the harvest of pine nus is a wild harvest there 100s of factors which determine yield. It could freeze early, there could be a fire, the snows could come and the pickers would all go home. Having worked with wild American pine nuts for close to 15 years, we learned to expect the unexpected.
We reserved a portion of our 2009 pine nut harvest, specifically to work with shelling and are selling shelled American pine nuts. Yesterday, I had an onslaught of orders and it will take awhile to get caught up. We are selling the pine nuts in 5 lb bags, due to the amount of work it takes to cold pack and federal express the product. No wonder, I am up at 4 am.
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These are freshly shelled pine nuts from Penny's Pine Nuts. They were shelled with George Frazier's pine nut sheller, which we are giving away to clients ordering 1,000 lbs or more of our Jumbo American Pinyon Pine Nuts
Are these beautiful or what? We shelled this bowl of pine nuts, fairly easily and quickly with George's pine nut sheller. Wnen a pine nut is perfectly fresh its color is bright white. The darker more carmel the the color, the more dehydrated or roasted the kernel is. While our sheller does not remove 100 % of the inner skin (brown membrane) it washes off fairly easily. The sheller can also be used to shell roasted pine nuts and in those cicumstances, more of the inner skin is removed. There is no gumminess to these pine nuts, just the crisp sweet flavor the jumbo soft shell pine nut is known for.
I am pretty excited about the sheller, because I have spent years telling people that shelling was the barrier to having the pinyon forest protected. Do you think the Federal Government would turn a tree that produces expensive, gourmet pine nuts into bio char or fuels? Oh that is right, see the Washington Post, wild harvest have no producers - tell that to the fishermen. Truly, I do not want to be in the business of selling shelled pine nuts, which is why we are giving away our shellers - 25 of them to cooperatives, small food processors, small pesto manufacturers, or other business enities. We will not sell the machine to anyone else. We don't intend to be selfish, yet, we have worked hard for 14 years protecting the pinyon forest. There are lots of greedy people in the American Pine Nut internet , who have exploited the forests. That is the problem. Had the generations of pine nut pickers who sell today, been busy or at least vocal in protecting those forest, I would have spent the last 14 years doing something else.
The American Pine Nut sheller changes everything about the 50 million dolar market for imported pine nuts in the US. We are going to be very careful with sharing the technology.]]>These are freshly shelled pine nuts from Penny's Pine Nuts. They were shelled with George Frazier's pine nut sheller, which we are giving away to clients ordering 1,000 lbs or more of our Jumbo American Pinyon Pine Nuts
What a time to be test driving our pine nut sheller. The farmer's markets are full of basil and I can make pesto with fresh, American pine nuts on a wholesale level. I am not gloating, but celebrating at being able to cook with my pine nuts to my heart's content. Check this out - I have a wonderful bowl of fresh pine nuts in a short time. While not all the inner skin is removed, most is. On a roasted product almost all of the skins come right off! The technology is wonderfully brillant and with dried or dehydrated pine nuts there is no need for peeling. The peel slides right off. These were fresh (note the beautiful white color), the more processed a pine nut, the darker the color. It is amazing to me, to have such an abundance of pine nuts to cook with. I cannot believe my good fortune.
We don't want to be in the pine nut shelling business - nor do we want to sell shellers. We are giving away the shellers with a contract for 1,000 lbs of pine nuts, with prefence given to cooperatives and small manufacturers with 1 - 3 employees. We do NOT want big business to have control of America's pine nuts. Our work was started to protect these forests and the more people who can work sustainably with them, the more protection the forests have.
We are taking $1,000.00 deposits, with pine nut delivery starting in mid October. We are pricing the first 1,000 lbs of pine nuts @ $10.00 per pound. The second 1,000 lbs will be 10% less and the price will continue to go down as people use our sheller. It is our goal to have certified organic pine nuts this fall. That way manufactures and Whole Foods, together with other organic processors will have the ability to have low cost, fresh pine nuts without the fear of pine nut mouth.]]>