Some Bright News on California Walnuts

Walnut snacking, heart health of walnuts and new product development is happening. Jennifer Olmstead is Domestic Marketing Director and Public Relations for the California Walnut Board and Commission. Homestead said the Walnut industry wants the increased snacking on their product, but this spring COVID-19 got in the way of a campaign.

“We're very focused on snacking in the spring and the summer. And we had originally hoped to do a regional snacking program at retail stores, but with the retail climate, the way it is right now in retailers hesitant to put together promotions, we've had to put that off until the fall, but we are all still excited about doing some snacking work at retail to kind of kick us off into our new season,”

said Olmstead.

And it's a great idea to snack on walnuts because it's all about good heart health.

“There's always new research coming out and there continues to be benefits to walnuts and cardiovascular health. So that was some good news,” noted Olmstead. “The other good news is we're still seeing some new product introductions with walnuts. A great line of single serving salads with walnuts just came out from Dole. We're seeing some interesting things on the nut butter side and the snacking side. So there's still interest in using walnuts, even though things have slowed down a little bit on the product development side with COVID.”