Raw almond kernel is the shelled seed of Prunus dulcis. Like cashew, it is not a Ukrainian crop, and the record says so plainly: the volume origins supplying Europe are California, Spain, Australia and Turkey, with Portugal and Italy in the specialty grades. It sits in the catalogue because it is the reference nut in European bakery and confectionery and because almost every buyer specifying walnut also specifies almond.
Almond is the most standardised of the common tree nuts. UNECE Standard DDP-06 covers almond kernels and gives the size, colour and defect vocabulary that most European contracts borrow, and the trade has settled conventions for counts, for blanching and for the forms – whole, blanched, split, slivered, sliced, diced and flour – that a manufacturer buys.
Two things still divide the market. The first is variety family, which changes shape, skin colour, oil content and behaviour under heat. The second is treatment: whether the kernel has been through a validated pasteurisation step, which differs by origin and which decides what the kernel may be used in.
Grades, cuts and calibration
Four axes, and a manufacturer who only specifies two will get surprised by the others.
Variety family. California varieties such as the Nonpareil type give a flat, smooth, light kernel that blanches and slices cleanly. Spanish types such as Marcona give a rounder, sweeter, higher-oil kernel that behaves differently in a paste and costs more. Mediterranean and Turkish material sits between the two. A contract that says almond without a variety family has left a real functional variable open.
Size. Almond is sized by count per ounce – typically bands such as 18/20, 20/22, 23/25, 27/30 and 32/34 – and a higher count means a smaller kernel. Size drives price on whole kernel, and it drives nothing at all on diced or ground material, which is why manufacturers who grind should never pay for a display size.
Natural or blanched. Natural kernel carries the brown skin; blanched kernel has been hot-water treated and the skin removed. Blanching costs yield and money, adds a heat step, and delivers the pale kernel that marzipan, white pastes and visible bakery decoration require.
Defects. Chipped and scratched kernel, doubles, gum, insect damage and foreign material each carry a separate tolerance under DDP-06. Doubles – the flat twinned kernels from a two-seeded fruit – are cosmetically distinct and matter only in display applications, which makes them a cheap concession to give in a negotiation if the kernel is going to be ground.
Seasonality and availability
Northern hemisphere almond is harvested from August into October and is available all year from conditioned store. Australian material harvests in the southern autumn, which puts fresh crop into the market at the opposite point of the year and is genuinely useful for a buyer trying to avoid old crop in the European summer.
Crop year is the variable to control. Almond is more oxidatively stable than walnut, so an eleven-month-old lot is not automatically a problem, but the market habit of carrying stock across crop years means a buyer who does not ask will sometimes receive material two crops old. It will pass most specifications and it will not taste like new crop.
The other seasonal variable is the sizing mix. Early in the marketing year the full ladder of counts is available; later on the large display sizes have gone and the market is long on the small end. A buyer who can use a smaller count buys well in the second half of the year, and a buyer locked to 20/22 does not.
What the buyer checks at intake
- Identity and lot: variety family, crop year, origin, count band, natural or blanched, and the treatment status, all cross-checked against the packing list and the certificate of analysis.
- Count verification on a weighed and counted sample against the contracted band, reported as counts per ounce rather than as a pass or fail.
- Defect separation on a weighed sample with each defect category reported separately, because DDP-06 tolerances are per category and a combined figure cannot be enforced.
- Moisture and, where specified, water activity, which on almond is the parameter that predicts mould in store better than moisture alone.
- Free fatty acid and peroxide value from the certificate, read as a pair, plus a sensory check on a cut kernel.
- Aflatoxin result with the sampling plan named, and where the origin is subject to increased official controls, the accompanying documentation for those controls.
- Treatment status in writing: untreated, steam pasteurised, or treated by another validated process. This is a label and a hazard analysis question and it cannot be settled after arrival.
Where it is used
Bakery and confectionery is the dominant European outlet and it takes every form. Whole natural and blanched kernel goes on top of products, slivered and sliced material goes into fillings and coatings, and almond flour and meal goes into macarons, frangipane and gluten-free formulations, where particle size and residual oil both matter more than the kernel grade the flour was milled from.
Marzipan and persipan is a specification of its own, built on blanched kernel with a tight colour requirement and a low bitter almond content, and it is one of the few applications where variety family is written into the contract as a matter of course.
Snack and retail nut takes the large counts, natural or blanched, roasted and seasoned. Plant-based dairy takes whole or broken kernel into almond butters and almond drinks, an outlet that has grown fast in Europe and that buys on protein, oil and free fatty acid rather than on appearance.
Standards and routes
Almond moves to Europe by sea from California, Australia and Turkey and by road from Spain, and is distributed onward by road in ambient trailers. Like all high-oil kernels it is stable in transit and vulnerable in long warm storage, so the receiving warehouse condition matters more than the vehicle.
Two regulatory threads accompany the goods. Aflatoxin maximum levels sit in Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915, with sampling and analysis under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/2782. Where the origin appears in the annexes to Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1793, consignments are subject to an increased frequency of identity and physical checks at the border control post, and that instrument is amended regularly enough that the version in force on the shipment date is the only one worth reading.
Supplier assurance runs through BRCGS, IFS Food or FSSC 22000 at the processing site. The contaminant detail sits in the aflatoxin management guide and the specification comparison in the walnut against almond comparison.
