By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER Ohio Correspondent STOCKTON, Mo. — Get cash for your black walnuts at a Hammons Black Walnut hulling station this fall, where there are 230 of them spread across 11 states. Started in 1946, Hammons is a fourth-generation family-owned business. It is the primary sheller and processor of black walnuts, both nuts and shells. When customers bring black walnuts to the hulling stations, a machine removes the outer hulls, and the operators pay the customer for the in-shell nut weight. Hammons is offering record prices this year. Black walnuts are cyclical, said Jacob Basecke, Hammons vice president of sales and marketing. The company uses an average of 20 million-25 million pounds a year. Last year it bought 13 million; in 2017 it bought 31 million. “Because we’re coming off of a light crop, we need 20 to 25 million bushels this year, so we have increased the price,” he explained. Black walnuts have some unique properties, Basecke said. They’re native to North America. English walnuts are not; they’re grown in orchards in California. Black walnuts are all sourced from wild trees. They have a different flavor and different nutrition. The highest concentration of black walnut trees is in the Midwest. About 60 percent of Hammons’ crop comes from here. Missouri is the top state, followed by Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. BJ Price and his dad have operated a hulling station near Eaton, Ohio, for eight years. They’ve had some terrific years, and some terrible years, Price said. “Two months ago I would have told you this was going to be a good year,” he noted. “But since then with our drought, the nuts jumped early. Some of them aborted – they didn’t even form nuts all the way. What we’ve picked up so far have been small, about the size of quarters. We call those BBs.” Last year was not a good year either, but 2017 was phenomenal, Price said. Last year they bought 30,000 pounds of walnuts, but in 2017 they bought upwards of 147,000. “So, in one year you can have a fifth of your total volume,” he said. “From an agricultural perspective, it would be hard to live on that. The hulling station is nice to have around, but we don’t bank on it.” There is another hulling station at Joe Hietter’s Horse ’N Nut Farm in Pataskala, Ohio. Hammons built the hulling machine on his property. “We get anywhere from 50,000 pounds to 200,000 pounds a year,” Hietter said. He is one of the few people who, in addition to wild trees, has a grove of black walnuts; he has about 1,000 nut trees. Besides black walnut, he has hazelnut, pecan, hickory, chestnut, and more types of trees. He collects the black walnuts but has the trees mainly to use for grafting. Most of Hammons’ nuts go into food production, with walnuts for black walnut ice cream making up about 35 percent of the sales. “After the walnuts come to our plant, we dry them to about 4 to 5 percent moisture and then they have to be processed,” Basecke explained. ”They’re cracked, and the nutmeats are separated and the shell goes to our shell plant.” The shells are ground and sold for industrial purposes. They’re used as a soft-grit abrasive for sandblasting, and more. Walnut shells have been used to clean the Statue of Liberty and Navy ships. Hammons has recently been promoting the health benefits of black walnuts, Basecke said, asserting they have the highest protein content of any tree nut. With the growing popularity of plant-based proteins, foodies are showing interest, especially in the natural and organic markets. Celebrity chefs are finding more occasions to use black walnuts, as well. For more information, visit black-walnuts.com BJ PRICE AND HIS DAD have operated a hulling station for eight years. Hammons Black Walnuts needs 20 million-25 million pounds of nuts this year so it has increased the price it’s paying. (Courtesy of BJ Price) |
