Almond & Co.

When in the riverland you must take a drive to Rimat to visit Arman Coat, one of Australia's largest almond producers. Australia is the second largest producing country of almonds, but we're poor cousins to California who have got 1. 6 million acres of almonds. So when the almonds are ripe, what happens to them? The almonds grow on the tree. There's normally about a mature tree which is about 30,000 to 40,000 flowers and that relates to about probably 12,000 to 15,000 nuts on a mature tree. And Arman's harvest starts in February and normally wraps up around Easter time. So the almonds are coming in through our hulling shelling facilities, which we call primary processing, and then it comes to our Rimat facility here for final sorting, packing and value adding. It's a simple nut that's been around for thousands of years and all of a sudden in the 21st century comes in all these different gods. So tell us about some of them. I think we've got well over 100 different almond products. Datchel almonds, we blanch almonds, we roast almonds, most of the things in your breakfast cereal or muesli bar would be coming from here. We also make almond paste, which is sort of a newer sort of product over the last couple of years, which is the key ingredient into almond yoghurt, almond milk. Almonds are such a versatile product. As we process the almonds, we're able to reclaim the product if it doesn't meet a certain grade and then value add that in another process. So a very waste efficient industry. What about export? The Australian industry, for instance, this year will produce around about 115,000, 120,000 metric ton of almond kernels and the domestic market is around 25 to 30,000 tonnes. So it's a major export crop. It's the most valuable horticultural export that Australia has. I've heard the chocolate coated ones are dark chocolate, of course. They are. Very good. Totally, very good. It's very hard to get a big enough jar when you start on those. Most popular ones, do you think? Natural almonds and roasted almonds are by far the most popular. Your favourite? Well, I So we Very hard not to stop eating those.