Candied Walnuts

A couple of years ago, our walnut crop was very poor, probably close to half of a normal production. It was a very scary time for us because we knew it was going to be a tight year financially as a result. We needed to find other avenues to market our nuts that would bring in enough money to get the next year's crop in. We were already selling at the farmers market, and roadside stands as well as wholesale.

Selling wasn't the problem, we just didn't have enough nuts to sell. So how could we take the few nuts we had and turn them into a higher dollar income? We decided to try candying them because for each pound you candy you get back almost a pound and a half of finished product. We have been giving away recipes for candied nuts at the markets for years, but were unable to actually make them for resale because we didn't have a commercial kitchen.

In order to candy the nuts they had to be cracked first. We didn't think that would be much of a problem, but were surprised to find out no one was willing to do the small amounts we needed. The company we had crack for us in the past wanted a 10,000 pound minimum. Gulp, there was no way we could come up with that kind of amount. We ask other growers if they wanted to go in with us but they didn't want to be bothered with the storage and the marketing afterwards. And we found a lot of the old timers that we were referred to had retired. 

Finally we were put in touch with a fellow farmer about an hour and a half away who agreed to crack for us. Due to the small run size, It costs us about $1 a pound for cracking.

So the next hurdle was the candymakers. We began to research business that candied almonds and pistachios to see if they would do walnuts as well. The problem with candy walnuts is the shelf life is so short after they are processed that most companies don't want to mess with them.

We found a company fairly local (within 40 miles), but they would only use their recipes. However, they would let us do a minimum of only 25 pounds per flavor. And they had several flavors to choose from. This would give us a chance to sell some of the candy nuts to make enough money to candy a larger batch the next time. And we could have a larger variety to sell at a time. We also liked the idea they used honey, real butter and real vanilla in their recipes upon request. So we loaded up with samples of candied almonds and went home to taste and decide, which wasn't that easy because they were all good and we weren't sure if the walnuts would taste as good as the almonds. We were told they would make anything we wanted, BUT, if it didn't turn out to our liking, the nuts were ours and we were still paying for it! So now was the big step . What if they didn't sell fast enough? How many flavors should we do at a time? Getting proper labels designed that would meet all the codes. This would mean more paper work and time to get all the permits and documents required before we could sell at the farmers markets. 

Then we found out not all the farmers markets would allow VAP products to be sold unless you grew all the ingredients or because they weren't considered nutritious enough, even though they were made with honey. There were bags to consider. OK do we use bags that lay flat so you could look down on them? Or do we bag them in bags that are gusseted and will stand up for displaying on shelves? Poly bags or cellophane bags, zip lock bags so you could reseal or the cheaper ones that you stable or melt to seal? And then, there is the size of bags to consider, What do you think the public wants. A large bag that isn't eaten at one sitting will loose its crunchiness if not resealed properly. But a small bag looked too skimpy. We also found a shiny bag made a difference over a dull bag The digital we were using at farmers' markets would not weigh in ounces, so it was hard to do any odd size but 1/4 pound or 1/2 pounds. We knew the smaller the bag the more profit margin, but there was a point that it looked to skimpy and the customer felt cheated. We found out the size of the nut made a difference too. We were all proud of the beautiful halves we had but they weren't necessarily the best choice for candy, because if you coated smaller pieces your return weight was greater. The halves would break up in the cooking process anyway. However we still chose to use large pieces and halves because it looked prettier in the finished bag. We wanted the customer to get the biggest and the finest product we could provide.