The Hindu Business Line : Pistachio, the next ‘healthy’ nut

The world’s largest grower of almonds and pistachios, Paramount Farms, grows these “healthy nuts” over a mammoth 70,000 acres in the US, “half on our own and half with our grower partners”, says Mr Donminic Engels, Vice-President, Marketing, Paramount Farms.

His message is simple – “we offer you snacks that are tasty, healthy and nutritious.” His agenda is to urge consumers of “potato chips and doughnuts” to make the crossover to these snacks if they “want to live longer and healthier.”

Mr Engels was addressing a group of international journalists and nutritionists from India, China, Mexico, Spain and the UK, visiting the company’s processing and storage facilities, as well as its sprawling pistachio and almond orchards, at Lost Hill, California, on the eve of the 2008 Annual Pistachio Conference at Monterey, hosted by Paramount Farms.

He explains that while 40,000 acres of the total acreage are used for growing almonds, the remaining 30,000 acres have pistachio trees. Over the last few years, the company has stepped up its research and marketing efforts to push the penetration of Californian pistachios across the world.

Mr Engels admits that while the health benefits of consuming almonds are known and accepted worldwide, those of pistachios are yet to gain consumer consciousness.

Paramount is funding research that proves that pistachio is a healthy product that not only does good to your heart “but also helps in health management. I don’t like using the term weight loss.” He is sure that once the results of this research are widely published, the consumption of pistachios will shoot up. He said the pistachio crop works on a “on-year, off-year basis and this year has been a wonderful year for us, with our pistachio production touching 185 million pounds.

While the domestic market continues to be their biggest consumer, Europe is the largest export market, followed by China and “futuristic opportunities would be the greatest in the Indian and Mexican markets,” he adds.

Consumption

Almost 99 per cent of the pistachio consumption is as snack — with 98 per cent being sold in-shell and the remaining 2 per cent being shelled pistachios. In countries like India, shelled pistachios have a good market as it is used more in food, particularly sweets. That is one reason why pistachio sales shoot up in the months prior to the festival season, beginning with Diwali.

With the Indian market, just like wine or olive oil, “high duty on US imports of pistachios” is a major issue vis-À-vis pistachio export to India.

“But we are working with US trade negotiators and the Indian Government to lower its duty to a more reasonable level,” says Mr Engels.

The growing Indian market is on the company’s radar. “Today, India consumes 60 million pounds of Californian almonds, making it the second largest export country for almonds. But in the calendar year 2006, even though California pistachios registered a 10-fold increase the quantity was only 600 tonnes,” says Mr Keith Sunderlal of SCS Group, that represents Paramount Farms in India.

The company sees the opportunity to increase this to 20,000 tonnes from 8,000 tonnes in the next five years, and half of this is targeted as Paramount’s share.

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