How Nut Processors can Gain from the Latest Sorting Technologies

It’s not easy for nut processors to ensure food safety or meet customers’ product specifications

For one thing, foreign material and shell fragments can get into the processing line’s product stream. For another, nuts can be damaged by both by external and internal defects which can be almost impossible to detect. There’s also the risk posed by allergens if one type of nut should unintentionally get mixed with another. Yet all of these threats have to be eliminated to protect processors and retailers from product recalls and reputational damage.

If this makes nut processing sound like Russian Roulette, the good news is that it’s possible to remove all the bullets! This is achievable thanks to the extraordinary effectiveness of state-of-the-art optical sorting machines. What’s more, today’s sorting solutions deliver a multitude of other benefits: they grade to specification, minimize false rejects, increase removal efficiency, reduce or eliminate the need for manual intervention, help solve the problem of labor (scarcity, cost, effectiveness), reduce downtime, and provide data about the product being sorted. Through all of these capabilities, sorters improve sustainability by cutting food waste while enhancing yields and profits.

Here we take a brief look at how sorters achieve all this. We spotlight their capabilities with five popular types of nut to see the sorting solutions offered by industry-leader TOMRA Food. By looking first at almond processing, we introduce and explain the technologies applicable throughout the various stages of almond processing. We will also examine how sorters operate effectively on lines handling, macadamia, walnuts, hazelnuts, and peanuts.

THE PROCESS FOR ALMONDS, DIFFERENT SORTERS FOR DIFFERENT TASKS