got an email from a woman whose tag line was "An inherently sovereign being" Lady after my own heart- She wrote thoughtful questions about buying wholesale pine nuts for small manufactures in the food service industry. I thought her questions were well worth sharing. I was looking on the Internet for sources of bulk/wholesale pinenuts, and stumbled upon your site. After reading some of the background information and other resources on the site, I became very intrigued. My product is pesto. I have never used American pinenuts before, or even tasted one. But I have become convinced, after visiting your site, that I must use them in my pesto.

1.)First, which pinenut would be best for my purposes?

I am in love with the Jumbo Nevada Soft shells (P. Monophylla) more nut for the buck. Also, I know where they grow, who harvested them, how they were handled after the harvest, how they were shipped, processed and stored. As both a producer and a consumer, this supply chain means the world to me. IT is a rich, sweet, fruity pine nut. We are working on a shelled pine nut product, and will produce one, but there are a lot of consideration in working in with a shelled American Pine Nut.

2.) I need nuts that are going to either come shelled or be extremely easy and not time-consuming to shell.

Jumbo soft shell pine nuts are like bananas. When take the shell is taken off - something has to be done to preserve the pine nut meat. The nuts meat have to be roasted, dehydrated, frozen or altered to preserve the food. The soft shell pine nuts are rich in moisture - a huge problem in processing. With a raw fresh products, you have to use common sense. One cannot put freshly shelled raw pine nuts in the mail on Monday, and have it arrive 3 days later in full order. There would be a large percentage of moisture lost. All that moisture would be trapped in the packaging, spoiling the product. That is just one of this issues faced in pinenut processing. There are many other things to condsider. We are working with care and our long term in mind relationships in mind.

3.) I also need nuts that will keep well, either in dry storage or frozen, and will not lose flavor during storage.

Processing is everything and handling is the balance! In shell pine nuts have a great life span as long as they are frozen or kept in an environment where they can breath. (A real living food!!). The best way to have great pine nuts is to shell them yourself. American pine nuts can not freeze and thaw and freeze and thaw. That will ruin them in a heart beat. Once we launch our shelled pine nut product, they will be easy keepers. We are just not ready, yet. We are not going to sell an American Pine Nut which isn't perfect. No pine nut before its time. We have a long history of high standards. You can look over the blog and see what we think of people who sell poor products. We have more respect for the forest and our clients than to prematurely launch a shelled American Pine nut.

4.) Is there any possibility of getting samples of the different pinenuts that you have?

(I am sending you a free sample of our pine nuts for writing such great questions 1 lb Grade AA jumbos and our roasted, together with a sample of the hard shell P. edulis. We may launch a sample pack so people can discover the difference in all of our pine nut products. We are the only company which has sorted, graded pine nuts, who carries different pine nut species, and has a roasted inshell Jumbo pine nut - Grade A)

5.)Are any of your pinenuts sold shelled?

We are hard at work on this! No pine nut before its times! When it arrives, it will be perfect!

6.)And if not, what would be the approximate weight of the nuts after shelling

? Great question!!! We lose about 33% of the pine nut when roasting and about 20% with shelling. We have charts on the blog that show various species conversion rates (from inshell to kernel). It is rather amazing to me - just how different the conversion rates are for various species.

7 For instance, if I purchased a fifty pound bag, how much of that fifty pounds is going to be shells that will be discarded

? Do not toss the shells - save them for high value smoking (no not in hooka - but on the barbque.) Thanks so much!! Pine nut Penny