13 stages of careful work turn freshly harvested in-shell Brazil nuts into an export product meeting the highest quality and safety standards.
Raw material enters the plant under strict control
Quality Control The lot is weighed and a quality check (called cut): a representative sample of the incoming lot is taken to determine the percentage of rotten or hollow in-shell nuts.
Lots with a cut rate above 20% are rejected
Drying, Polishing, and Sizing
12 h – 20 h Incoming moisture (20% to 30%) is measured, and the nuts undergo shell drying and polishing, producing drum-processed raw material (MPC) with 14% to 18% moisture and a clean shell. At the outlet, nuts with shells darkened by internal oil migration are separated out.
Moisture: from 20–30% to 14–18%
By Size Using a Dromer and a horizontal screen sorter, sizes are separated by caliber — Large, Medium, Midget and Tiny — enabling uniform cracking and dehydration afterward.
The shell comes loose and each kernel is inspected
Pressurized Steam The MPC is subjected to 45–50 kgf/cm² of steam pressure for 45 to 60 seconds, purged, and given a second 40-second steam injection. It is then cooled with room-temperature water in the same autoclave. The whole process is designed to loosen the shell from the kernel.
50% Manual 50% of production is cracked by hand, and the rest by automatic machines. After separating shell from kernel, whole kernels, kernels with dark spots (chía), and rotten kernels are sorted out.
Manual Inspection Plant staff inspect the whole nuts. If a certain number of chía (spotted) nuts turn up, the entire lot goes back to the crackers for re-inspection. Broken nut pieces (broken) resulting from trimming away chía spots are also inspected.
UVC Rays Taking advantage of the fact that aflatoxins fluoresce under UVC light, contaminated kernels are identified and removed.
A key food safety barrier
Final sorting, dehydration, and vacuum packaging
Screen Sorter Top-grade nuts are automatically sorted by size, Large, Medium and Midget, also removing part of the chala (thin skin attached to the kernel).
60–80 °C The nuts are dehydrated from 16–18% moisture down to 2.5–3.5%, using air at 60°C to 80°C for 12 to 20 hours.
Final moisture: 2.5% – 3.5%
Stainless Steel On stainless steel tables, the nuts are manually inspected, Large, Medium and Midget, separating the Chipped, Broken and chips.
Vacuum-Sealed The nuts are packed in food-grade plastic bags, boxed in corrugated cardboard, and the bags are vacuum-sealed.
100% of Production This continuously calibrated equipment inspects 100% of production, detecting all types of metal.
Good Storage Practices Following good storage practices, the boxes are stacked in batches of 10 to 15 units, with a final inspection of the vacuum seal.
Explore the sizes and presentations that come out of this process, or write to us for a quote on your order.