Chestnut Processing Plant & Machinery Solutions

Freshly harvested chestnuts are cured in water and washed, which lifts off field soil and floats away hollow and insect-damaged nuts. Chestnut carries far more moisture than other nuts and spoils quickly without this first step.

Surface water is taken off and the nuts are graded into size bands. Peeling equipment is set to a size band, so grading has to come before peeling rather than after it.

The hard outer shell and the inner pellicle are loosened with steam or heat and then taken off. The pellicle clings tightly to the kernel, so shell and skin are usually removed in two separate passes.

Peeled kernels are colour sorted and camera inspected so that shell, skin and blemished kernel are removed before preservation. This is the last point at which defects can be taken out while the kernel is still loose.

Peeled chestnut is either frozen for whole-kernel supply or dried for the flour route. Both routes exist because chestnut cannot be held at ambient the way a dry nut can.

Dried kernel is milled into chestnut flour and sifted to grade, while frozen whole kernel goes to sealed packs. Finished packs are weighed, coded and cased for cold chain or ambient distribution.