Oregon Hazelnut Story Continued

Yesterday we learned that 99 percent of the nation’s hazelnuts are produced in Oregon state. While the hazelnut industry Oregon only supplies a very small percentage of the global supply, they are benefiting from Turkey’s freezes earlier this year, in the form of higher prices for Oregon hazelnuts. I asked Oregon hazelnut grower Brenda Frketich how Oregon producers market and sell their product. She says that her family farm is part of a cooperative that then markets their hazelnuts for them.
Frketich: “The biggest market for Oregon is China. So that is where about 60 percent of our hazelnuts go to China right now. They use it for a snack food actually. They dry it down, crack it and put a salt brine on it — almost like we eat pistachios.”
She continues with how other growers market their nuts.
Frketich: “There are a lot of different independent companies that have growers bring their nuts to them and they market their own. Most of it goes to China. There is obviously a domestic market that is getting bigger and bigger all the time. To Europe — they eat a lot of hazelnuts and then to other Asian countries.”
Oregon’s hazelnuts are known as being a higher quality nut.
Frketich: “Turkish nuts are a lot smaller so they use those in trail mixes. But yet, if you want something a little prettier or a bigger nut for a different product, then you’d turn to a different market more towards the U.S. market. It is interesting, within the world market we are so small, but we also have niches that we fill really well.”