Are you struggling to meet the rigorous purity standards required for international nut exports? This was the primary challenge for a large-scale hazelnut processor in southern Chile before they upgraded their facility with our comprehensive hazelnut cleaning line.
By transitioning from basic manual sorting to our multi-stage automated system, the client successfully elevated their product quality to premium export levels. This investment in professional hazelnut processing equipment not only removed all traces of debris and defective nuts but also significantly increased their processing capacity.
The result is a streamlined operation that delivers perfectly cleaned, sized, and safe hazelnuts, allowing them to command higher prices in the European market.
Customer Background and Needs Analysis
Chile has established itself as a powerhouse in the global hazelnut industry, with harvest volumes increasing year by year. The client operates in the Maule region, where the soil is rich but often clings to the nuts during harvest.
They faced a critical issue: raw harvested nuts arrived at the factory mixed with twigs, stones, dust, and metal fragments. Furthermore, a significant percentage of the harvest consisted of empty or shriveled nuts that ruined the batch quality.
To compete with Italian and Turkish suppliers, they urgently needed a high-capacity nut cleaning machine system. Their requirement was specific: a complete turnkey solution that could remove every type of impurity—from heavy stones to light dust and ferrous metals—and then grade the nuts by size for different buyers.
What’s Taizy’s Solution?
To meet these complex cleaning requirements, we engineered a fully integrated hazelnut cleaning line consisting of five specialized stages. The process begins with Pre-cleaning, where a vibration sieve and aspiration channel remove large debris, such as leaves and twigs.
Next, the flow moves to the Destoning machine, which utilizes specific gravity principles to separate heavy stones and clods from the nuts. To ensure food safety, we installed a Magnetic separation unit to catch any ferrous metal fragments picked up from farm machinery.
Crucially, we incorporated a Density separation unit to remove empty, broken, or insect-damaged beans that look normal but are lighter than healthy nuts. Finally, the clean nuts pass through a multi-deck Grading machine, sizing the beans into distinct calibers (e.g., 11-13mm, 13-15mm) for precise market targeting.
Our Hazelnut Cleaning Line Advantages
Our hazelnut processing plant stands out for its precision and robust engineering. The entire line is designed with a modular layout, allowing for flexible adjustments to fit the client’s existing warehouse.
A key advantage of our destoner and gravity separator is the adjustable air volume and vibration frequency, which allows the client to fine-tune the separation accuracy based on the moisture content of the hazelnuts.
Customer Feedback and After-Sales
The successful installation in Chile has been a major milestone. Upon arrival, our engineers provided comprehensive remote guidance, helping the client connect the elevators and calibrate the airflow for the density separator via video conference.
The client reported that the system is running flawlessly, achieving a purity rate of over 99.5%. They were particularly impressed by the grading accuracy, which has allowed them to package premium large nuts separately for higher profits.
The client expressed their gratitude for our technical support and has already begun discussions with us about adding a roasting line to their facility next season.