Processing
Hazelnuts need some time from orchard to the final consumer. Our highest priority is to offer a quality standard that guarantees the purity of the hazelnuts. To ensure this, it requires multiple quality controls. Our specialty is the accuracy and hygiene standards under which we work and the years of experience we operate in this field.The necessary processing steps are involving 10 steps that are further explained here. Pakka Georgia focuses on all steps from reception to shipment and works with longterm suppliers that do the on-field work such as planting, growing and harvesting.
Planting
Like many fruit orchards, hazelnut trees are planted in rows. It takes about five years after they are planted for hazelnut trees to bear nuts. But they can continue producing nuts for more than 50 years.
Growing
Hazelnuts pollinate in late winter then grow in the spring and summer. As they develop, the nuts go from green to hazel in color by the time they mature.
Harvesting
Harvesting season in Georgia starts in mid August, and nuts are mostly collected by farmers and workers by hand. Then hazelnuts are de-husked and either farmers dry them under the sun or bring them to the factory.
Reception
Upon arrival the in-shell hazelnuts are checked for the following parameters: moisture, yield, inner rotten/mold, insect bitten. If the quality meets the required criteria, then the in-shell hazelnuts are further processed.
Drying
Depending on the moisture level, nuts might undergo a drying process. Normally, the moister level is high at the start of the season, from beginning of August until mid-September or beginning of October. That is when hazelnuts are actively dried. Pakka Georgia has 14 drying silos in total and is able to dry 120 tons of raw materials at once. Depending on the initial moisture level of hazelnuts the drying process can last from 5 to 48 hours. During the drying process, moisture level is monitored constantly and once it reaches down to the required value of 5.5-6% the drying process ends and dried nuts are transferred to intermediary storage silos before the cracking process starts.
Cracking
Once there are enough raw materials available, or raw materials arrived already dry (so that there is constant flow of raw materials to feed cracking machines), the cracking and selection process starts. Right before actual cracking of in-shell hazelnuts they are first run through a de-stoner, which separates stones and other heavier foreign bodies from raw materials. At the same time, cyclone machines are used, to take out dust and foreign bodies that are lighter than in-shell hazelnuts.
After cleaning, in-shell nuts are calibrated by size, cracking machines are configured for the required caliber and different sizes of raw materials are cracked separately. Right after cracking shells are separated from kernels with cyclone machines and then kernels are run through sieves, which further separate rotter, shriveled and smaller second quality kernels from first quality kernels.
First quality kernels are then calibrated by their size and run through a color-sorter machine to further remove remaining rotten and bad quality hazelnuts. After the mechanical selection, kernels are recalibrated by size and they end up in silos before feeding the manual selection tables.
Selection before Roasting
During manual selection all remaining second and bad quality kernels are separated from the main product, as well as all remaining rotten kernels and foreign bodies, in case they are still present. Before passing product down the line for packaging, they run through 2mm sieves which separate smaller particles and foreign bodies from the product.
At this point, selected products are packaged in 1000kg big bags, if they are destined for storing or passing to the roasting line. If there is a customer request for natural hazelnut kernels then products are packaged according to customer request, labeled and ready products are stored to be shipped.
During packaging of natural hazelnut kernels, either for shipment, storage or passing on to the roasting line, products are checked with a metal detector and samples are taken for control and storage.
Roasting
Roasting happens upon a customer request, because the process and final product depends on the individual customer requirement. The process starts with feeding the processing line, where hazelnut kernels are run through a de-stoner, even though kernels were already cleaned and sorted. This additional step guarantees the purity of the processed products. After the double-cleaning of the hazelnuts, they undergo the roasting process in the oven, where the roasting level is adjusted according to customer requirements. Usually, the moisture level for roasted products is between 1.2 – 2.5% and between 2.5 – 4% for blanched hazelnuts. Once roasting is finished, hazelnuts are run through a skin removal machine, where the skin is peeled off depending on the customer requirements. It is possible to produce roasted/blanched hazelnuts with skin content between 5 – 30%.
At this point hazelnut are run through a color-sorter, which further removes small quantities of left rotten kernels and kernels from which skin couldn’t be pilled of. After this, the roasted hazelnuts end up on the manual selection table.
Selection after Roasting
After the manual sorting, the desired final product is either packaged in vacuum bags as whole roasted or blanched products or they undergo an additional processing, such as chopping or grinding.
It is possible to produce different chopped or diced products in different sizes (1 – 3 mm, 2 – 4 mm, 3 – 5 mm, 4 – 6 mm, 6 – 8 mm, 8 – 12 mm), which are later packed in vacuum bags. At a later stage, each bag is checked by a metal detector. At this stage, finished products destined for shipment are labeled, palletized and stored. All byproducts are stored in the warehouse for future sales.
Shipment
Hazelnuts are packaged and shipped to our customers.